


Carry the Flame - Book Three

by Damkianna



Series: Imagine The Ocean [3]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Female Protagonist, Gen, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-25
Updated: 2016-12-12
Packaged: 2018-04-27 07:58:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 38,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5040355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Damkianna/pseuds/Damkianna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was not as difficult as might be supposed, to follow the Grand Secretary through the palace at the pace he favored and yet keep a respectful distance. Book Three, Avatar!Katara AU. Sequel to Imagine the Ocean (Book One) and Listen to the Earth (Book Two).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Crossroads of Destiny

**Author's Note:**

> HEY THERE. My apologies to everybody who's been waiting almost a year for this—I have an impressive arsenal of excuses that I'll refrain from deploying in favor of just saying: SORRY. Clearly trying to write this to a schedule is a bad idea, so I won't make any promises as to speed or regularity; all I can say is that it's absolutely my intent to finish this book and this series ~~if I don't die of old age first~~. If you don't like reading WIPs, feel free to just subscribe and then go on about your way until you see the final chapter notification arrive. (WHICH IT WILL. SOMEDAY.)

  


  


It was not as difficult as might be supposed, to follow the Grand Secretary through the palace at the pace he favored and yet keep a respectful distance, and make sure one's head remained lowered appropriately. Of course, Joo Dee had had a great deal of practice with it. The trick was simply to keep the Grand Secretary's heels in view, just barely within the upper periphery of vision.

Normally, easy enough. Today it was a little harder: directing her gaze upward so sharply in the necessary way was making Joo Dee's head ache. It had been too long since she had slept, and she was beginning to pay for it. But the city was at last secured, and soon she would finally be able to rest. Or—lie in her quarters with her eyes closed, at least. Whether it would bring her rest remained to be seen.

Doors were opened, somewhere ahead of the Grand Secretary. Not to the true throne room, where stood the great gilt throne that had held no one but kings of Ba Sing Se in five thousand years—that, Long Feng had ordered to be sealed off, so that it might remain the one thing in this place outside Princess Azula's reach. No doubt the princess would soon notice the discrepancy in the alignment of the interior walls, but by then there would have been time enough to remove the throne—to lower it through the floor, perhaps, and there bury it until the king returned. No other could be permitted to sit in it, and in this the Dai Li would not bend, not even for Fire princesses.

The princess had been shown instead to the largest and finest of the king's audience chambers, to a throne nearly as gilded but far less sacrosanct. The kingdom had fallen and yet was preserved, in more ways than one; the Dai Li surrendered and prevailed with the same action.

And perhaps one day they would even be forgiven for it.

Long Feng's heels stopped halfway up the length of the hall, and Joo Dee with them. The princess, ahead of them, was addressing one of her generals, and they had only just come near enough to hear her clearly: "—remaining battalions to the lower districts," she was saying, and the general moved—bowing, Joo Dee guessed, by the shuffling sound of it, and then the noise changed to footsteps, moving away.

"Your Highness," said the Grand Secretary; Joo Dee said nothing, it was not her place, but she waited a beat and then bowed, and when she straightened up again she let herself lift her head at last.

Princess Azula was looking at her. It lasted only a moment, the princess's gaze sharp and assessing; and then the princess looked at Long Feng, tilted her head, and smiled. "Grand Secretary—excellent," she said. "We'll be able to sort this problem out very quickly."

"Problem, Highness?" Long Feng said.

"Oh, yes," Princess Azula said, leaning forward in her throne. "The problem—it has to do with you, you see. You have done very well, Grand Secretary—"

"Thank you, Highness," Long Feng murmured.

"—and I am pleased with your service," Azula went on. "But now I find myself faced with one small issue that must be resolved: you simply cannot be trusted."

Her tone was faintly regretful, but held no doubt, no uncertainty—Joo Dee could imagine sounding the same way upon finding that a cup of water had been spilled across two weeks' worth of reports, upon telling a junior agent they would need to be recopied.

The room was silent. Joo Dee dared to aim a glance sideways at the Grand Secretary: Long Feng was not so ill-trained as to let himself look wrong-footed, but Joo Dee could see it nevertheless in the way he blinked twice, in the frown that wrinkled his brow ever so briefly before he smoothed it away and cleared his throat and said, "Your Highness—"

Princess Azula did not let him finish. "If you'd been bribed, that would be one thing," she said, conversational now—making a show of it, Joo Dee thought, so that no one else in this room would ever forget how easily it had been done, how little effort it had taken. "You're not a fool, Long Feng; you and I both know that I could double any price offered to you. If you'd hoped to secure greater power for yourself, even—you could have been my father's right hand in this city, and no one could ever have risen higher. But of all the things to turn you against your sovereign, in the end, you did it for—principle?" She shook her head, sighing, and sat back. "Principle simply can't be depended upon. You dethroned your king because you decided that he threatened something greater; how can I be sure you won't decide the same of me? No—I'm afraid it can't be risked." Princess Azula looked at Long Feng a moment longer, that sharp yellow gaze almost pitying, and then glanced at Joo Dee. "Kill him."

Long Feng had been staring up at Azula with studied incredulity, eyes narrowed—and that disbelief was its own sort of show, Joo Dee knew, the kind of reaction Long Feng had often been able to use to sway the king in the past.

But Princess Azula was not the king. Princess Azula did not depend on Long Feng's credence, would not pause and look at him more carefully and say, _Oh—unless there is some reason that it would be unwise to do so?_ Long Feng had no doubt realized it, too, for at this last he turned to Joo Dee. His expression was carefully blank—to be horrified would be to acknowledge that the princess's command had some chance of being carried out, and that Long Feng would not do. But nevertheless there was some uncertainty in the way he looked at her, in the tension around his eyes, and in his voice when he said to her hurriedly, "I am your Grand Secretary, you cannot—"

"You are," Joo Dee agreed, and bowed to him—low, as low as all his years of impressive and dedicated service demanded. "The city above all, Grand Secretary," she added, as quietly as she could, and waited, still bowing.

He was Grand Secretary for a reason, and Princess Azula had spoken truth: he was not a fool. He had done well by the city, unimaginably well, to turn the Dai Li themselves into the instrument of Princess Azula's victory—they had been permitted to retain all their power, to be allowed to make use of all their knowledge, so that they might guide Ba Sing Se through this new future with the devotion and precision that was required. And Princess Azula needed them, for now; there were not enough Fire Nation soldiers in the city to defeat the Dai Li, not nearly, and the people accepted the authority of the Dai Li with far less resistance than they would have offered to any conquering army. Oh, many had fled in those early hours, before the city had been secured as it should have been. But many, many more remained, and yet there had been no riots, no uprisings—isolated spots of trouble in the Lower and Middle Rings, but no worse.

But Princess Azula had ordered Long Feng's death; and if they denied it to her, she would not forget it. They could, perhaps, afford to refuse her in this moment—she could not kill all of them herself, and had to know she would not fare well if they withdrew their support from her so early. But all that meant was that she would revenge herself upon them some other day when they could _not_ afford it, when the balance was not in their favor; and then the city would pay the price.

Princess Azula needed to consider the Dai Li her own, needed to value them and all that they were able to do for her—but it would not happen if they disobeyed her now. Long Feng was a great and dutiful man, and conducted himself with thoughtfulness, righteousness, clear-eyed consciousness of his place in the universe; but his was but a single life, and the city was the city.

There was a moment's silence—and then a shushing of cloth. Long Feng, Joo Dee thought, tucking his hands into his sleeves; and she straightened and met his gaze.

There was horror there now, but it was overtaken even as she looked at him by a terrible kind of certainty. He did not want to die, it was stark upon his face, but he had heard what Joo Dee had said and he had understood it. He looked back at her with something that was nearly calm, and swallowed once; and then he glanced at Princess Azula and inclined his head. "The city above all," he murmured to Joo Dee, and closed his eyes.

Joo Dee bowed again, and as she bowed she took up the stone gloves from her sash, and took a deep slow breath. Best to make it quick, she thought; and then she stood straight, hurled the gloves outward, and bent.

  


*

  


"Neatly done, I suppose," Princess Azula said, once what remained had been taken away. She did not look entirely satisfied—another small victory, perhaps, to have done it cleanly and quietly where the princess would have preferred Long Feng pleading and weeping, Joo Dee herself reluctant and distressed.

All Joo Dee's victories would no doubt be very small ones, for a time. She supposed she should get used to it. Of course there would be a price for this—there always was, nothing could be accomplished without it, and Joo Dee even knew what form it would take. She would dream of it: this room, the throne, the princess watching; the way his face had reddened and then purpled, the sound his neck had made. She would wake afterward and her hands would shake.

She had paid like that for killing Princess Azula's own cousin. Time had given her the perspective she needed to see that it was not so steep a price, to save a city; and she was Dai Li. The city, above all.

"Thank you, Your Highness," Joo Dee said, and bowed again, and when she looked up at the princess afterward her face felt like it was not hers, like it was stone.

"High General Bujing and General Haiza have military matters well in hand," Princess Azula said, "but there will surely be a need for a civilian authority while I am traveling to the Fire Nation—one the city will accept, one who is familiar and experienced. One who will do what needs to be done. And not a Grand Secretary," the princess added. "I am sure the Dai Li have ways of sorting that out for themselves, and I think we can do better. Wouldn't you agree, Supreme Bureaucratic Administrator?"

Ah—no wonder the princess found herself dissatisfied. Joo Dee could see, now, how it would have been better if the execution had been worse: if Joo Dee had been hesitant, upset, but had killed a man who begged to live and had horrified herself by it. And then had been given this title, this authority, as reward—and what could she ever have refused to do for Azula afterward, having given in and done one thing so terrible already?

"As you command, Your Highness," Joo Dee said. "The Dai Li will humbly accept any opportunity to serve Your Highness as best Your Highness sees fit."

The princess narrowed her eyes, gaze turning sharp—she had wanted Joo Dee's acceptance, Joo Dee's alone, to bind Joo Dee to her as an individual. She was pleased with the Dai Li, she liked them and liked to make use of them; but she still did not understand them, not truly.

"If there is anything else—?"

"No, no," Princess Azula said, waving a dismissive hand. "I am certain there are a few newly pressing matters demanding your attention, Supreme Bureaucratic Administrator. I will send someone for you later so that we may discuss your new title in more detail."

"As you command, Your Highness," Joo Dee said, and backed out of the room.

  


* * *

  


Yin should have slept. Perhaps that would have made it easier—to fall asleep still lit up with the sheer joy of unexpectedly remaining alive, and then to wake to a new day, the delineation clean and sharp. No dark quiet hours watching the sky change; no need to wait, aware every moment, through the feeling of that joy retreating, like a long slow tide going out.

As it was, she could see herself in the expression of every single sailor who'd had the night's watch as they came to the bridge to be relieved of duty. Their faces were blank, almost, the jubilation drained away and a hollowness left behind where it had been—but with a flicker here and there of bewilderment, uncertainty. To survive a thing you'd thought would kill you was dizzying—which meant, stripping the giddiness and gladness away, that you were lurching, off-balance. Yin could read the question in their eyes because it was the same question she had spent all night asking herself: _what now?_

The Serpent's Pass was closed again behind them, so they were in no immediate danger from the fleet. Even less than they might have been otherwise—perhaps it was Yin's imagination, but the silhouette of the Pass against the early-morning sky seemed larger than it had been, more solid. Perhaps the fleeing Earthbenders had done more to it than just open and shut a gap out of gratitude.

So they had survived, and were alive, and would stay that way today. It only remained to be seen whether they would be able to say the same tomorrow; the day after; in a week, a month, a year—

"Have you been here all night?"

Yin turned in her chair and raised an eyebrow.

"Sir," Kishen added, ducking his head apologetically—and then smiling at her, which ruined the effect somewhat.

Yin couldn't quite find the right words to tell him to stop. "We must keep to our ranks," she said instead, half to herself. "We must keep ourselves in order. We did this to preserve our honor and standing as sailors of the Imperial Navy—"

"Even if the Imperial Navy disagrees, and will no longer have us," Kishen murmured, sounding amused.

Yin looked away.

"Sir?" Kishen said, more carefully now.

"We did not do this to—to break free of anything, to forsake our duty, to set aside the oaths that bind us. They'll say we have, they'll _think_ we have, but we haven't. And we must hold to that, or none of it will mean a damn thing."

Kishen was silent for a moment, and then snorted, half a laugh huffed through his nose—that made Yin look at him again, incredulous, and when she did he laughed outright. "If you mean to chastise me, sir," he said, "then I—I apologize for making light, because I don't like to think I've displeased you. But if you think I was making light of you and what you've done, you're wrong. There is—" and here his mouth twisted for a moment, faintly bitter. "There is something worth mockery here, but it isn't you. That you take your duty more to heart than those who charged you with it, and that they'll call you traitor for it—that they'd execute you for it if they could only lay hands on you—I'll laugh at them for that if I please, sir."

"They'd execute you, too," Yin said; and it came out warmer than she'd expected it to, something in her chest now eased.

"Oh, I don't doubt it, sir," Kishen murmured, very wry. "Now, if I may ask—do you intend to sleep at all today, sir?"

Yin sighed and leaned back in her chair. "No," she said, "I do not think so. There is too much that needs doing."

Kishen raised his eyebrows, eloquent.

"We must have the squadron commanders back again, I think, and one must be appointed to the ships that lack one—those divisions that joined us from Paozun's fleet, especially, if there is no squadron flagship among them. And we must have reports from every ship's quartermaster."

" _Every_ ship—"

Yin did not even have to interrupt him—he closed his own mouth, and she angled a glance up at him and felt grim satisfaction. That, at last, had wiped the smile off entirely. "Every ship," she repeated, firm, even though the look on his face made it clear that he now understood why she'd said it. "We must know exactly what we have, and how much of it there is. Perhaps if we start rationing immediately, we'll be all right for a little while; but it will get very bad soon enough. We did not do it to break free of anything, but nevertheless we _have_ broken free—there will be no more supply convoys, no more cargo shipments." She shook her head. "We are on our own."

  


* * *

  


"Fire Nation!"

Mikama woke at the cry and groaned, feeling groggy and resentful until the meaning of the words struck her—and then she lurched up from the deck, grabbing for the rail, and tried to work out who had said it. Pakura or Bato, who were at the stern and bow respectively, or Takka, at the far rail, or—

A hand closed on Mikama's arm—Ukara, who yanked Mikama the rest of the way to her feet and said, "There."

She was pointing in a direction Mikama hadn't been expecting: toward the shore, which hadn't been there when Mikama had fallen asleep, rather than toward the open water where a good hundred Fire Nation battleships were presumably still lurking. Perhaps the mutinous commander they'd saved had figured out what had happened, or perhaps not—Hakoda hadn't been especially eager to test the limits of Fire Nation gratitude. Their little scouting vessel had slunk away from the rest of the escaped fleet in the night, with several large chunks of rock broken off the Serpent's Pass to defend themselves with if any of the other ships should come after them.

But: Ukara was not pointing toward a ship. Mikama squinted along the line of her arm for a moment without seeing anything, and then caught sight of something glinting—metallic, then—and moving. Undoubtedly Fire Nation, though it was still too far away to see any insignia clearly without the use of a glass.

And, Mikama realized, they would surely be suspicious. Even if whoever it was in that metal device had not heard about the mutinous commander, they would be suspicious of a ship that appeared to be Fire Nation but sailed in the North Yellow Sea.

The ship was small; there was morning mist rising off the water; perhaps they had not yet noticed. But they would soon, there could be no doubt of it, and it would be best if they had no chance to act on what they saw. Even now, Mikama thought, even now the glinting thing was slowing, angling nearer to the water.

"Quickly," Ukara said, and even as she said it and tugged at Mikama's arm, Mikama looked up toward the bow and saw one of the boulders on the main deck swing up into the air.

  


***

  


"I still say we keep it," Sokka said.

Katara rolled her eyes. "I know you like driving," she said, "but it's just a little bit conspicuous, don't you think?" _And it's **Fire Nation**_ , she wanted to add, but bit her lip before the words made it out. She didn't want to say them with—with Prince Zuko right there, listening. Not because it would hurt him, she didn't care about that, but because maybe he'd object, maybe he'd argue, and then she'd have to argue back, and she wanted to talk to him even less than she wanted to dig her teeth into her own lip to keep her mouth shut.

She'd honestly half-expected him to just be _gone_ when morning got there, frost melted off with the sun—but he hadn't been. She'd fallen asleep with her back to him, unthinking, and then woken up and turned around and actually felt herself be surprised to see him still there: sitting in the furthest corner of the tank's insides, back straight, silent, like he hadn't slept at all and wasn't planning to. Like they were the ones who couldn't be trusted.

It didn't matter. They were almost to the shore of the North Yellow Sea, now—they'd leave the tank behind, bury it or shove it in the water. And then they'd go their way, and Prince Zuko would go his, and they wouldn't have to look at him or talk to him or even think about him, ever again.

Right.

"Besides," Suki said, "we're nearly out of coal-bricks as it is. How would we ever keep it running?"

"I'm sure we could come up with something!" Sokka insisted. "Maybe we don't even need the coal—maybe Katara could just _bend_ the water into steam in there—"

"Sure," Toph said, tilting her head. "And then we can just ride a tank with a giant Fire Nation seal on it through the Earth Kingdoms. I bet nobody'll have a problem with that."

Sokka sighed and did something with a couple levers and a pedal, and the tank began to slow. "We could paint over it," he grumbled, peering out the front window. "Or scrape it off or something. Honestly, you guys just have absolutely no imagination—"

Katara thought at first that he'd hit something. That was what it sounded like, a sharp metallic _bang_ reverberating through the tank, and that was what it felt like: the whole thing shuddered, and Sokka yelped and yanked the wheel sideways so that the tank jerked left, sending Katara sliding into the nearest wall.

"What was _that_?" Toph said—Katara pushed herself upright and turned to see that Toph had her palms flat against the tank's side. Prince Zuko, past her, had almost toppled over; he caught himself and then his head came up, eyes wide, and Katara looked away before he could try to say something to her.

"Maybe somebody with a problem," Suki murmured.

Sokka eased another lever down, and the tank came shuddering to a halt. He was still staring out the front of the tank, leaning sideways and squinting. "No," he said, "no way, that's—that ship is totally Fire Nation."

"And you _stopped_?" Katara said.

Sokka wasn't listening. "Except they can't be. They couldn't know it was us—and why would a _Fire Nation_ ship be throwing rocks at us?" He ducked down and grabbed for the handle of the nearest hatch, twisting it and then kicking the hatch open with a clang, and before Katara could stop him or grab him or tell him he was an idiot, he'd dropped through.

" _Sokka_ —!"

"No, he's right," Aang said, from where he'd been hovering near the ceiling. "That really doesn't make any sense."

Whatever the answer was, somebody was throwing boulders around, and Sokka wasn't going to be able to keep them from crushing him without Katara's help—she was leaning down and reaching for the hatch, and it was just luck that when Sokka's head popped back up through it, he didn't give her a bloody nose with his forehead. "It isn't," he said, "it isn't—"

"Sokka, what are you—"

"—it's _Father_."

  


*

  


The ship cracked open just like any one of the raiding vessels that had come to the south, the bow splitting like the long heavy jaw of a moose whale. But no raiders came out of it, no Fire Nation soldiers. It was like something out of a dream, disconcerting, to look up at that shape—which had always meant fear, destruction, death—and see Father stepping forward.

But it wasn't a dream: he was there, he was _there_. Katara had meant to start with Suki and Toph, to introduce them and explain, to tell him about Yue and Ba Sing Se and the king—but somehow she was running up the ramp instead, throwing her arms around Father and squeezing her eyes shut in case that would help make them stop stinging.

  


***

  


It was Sokka who ended up introducing the Water Tribe warriors. Most of them went by in a blur of unfamiliar but friendly faces—except for Bato, who must have recognized Suki right back, judging by the way he smiled. Friendly faces, and even more than that, _trusted_ faces, which was so unusual at this point that Suki didn't quite know what to do. Even in Kanjusuk, they'd had to prove themselves, but there wasn't any opposition here, nothing they had to brace themselves against or take sides over. It was _weird_.

"—and this, obviously, is our dad," Sokka was saying, and then he added, belated, "Hakoda."

He probably meant it was obvious because of the way Katara was still wrapped halfway around the man, one arm squeezing tight around his back—and maybe also because of the way she was crying, not angry or unhappy but relieved, smiling even as she wiped tears off her face with her free hand.

But Suki thought maybe it would have been obvious anyway. Usually you talked about how people had pieces of their parents in them, but Suki had met Katara and Sokka first, and she couldn't help making the comparison the other way around: Hakoda had Katara's eyes and brow; Sokka's chin and jawline; something familiar in the general look of the nose, but not a perfect match to either one of them.

"The Warrior of Kyoshi," Hakoda said, nodding in acknowledgment. "Bato told us about you—Suki, is that right?"

"That's right," Suki said, and bowed—not as low as she could have, he didn't seem like he was somebody who stood on ceremony, but he was still the chief of the Southern Water Tribe.

"And that's Toph," Katara added, pointing; her voice creaked like a bad hinge, but the tears had mostly stopped, and she was still smiling. "She's been teaching me to Earthbend," and then, in a confiding sort of tone: "She's _awful_."

"Oh, please," Toph said, crossing her arms. "You're just as annoying as I am, sugar queen."

Katara scoffed, and Hakoda tried to hide a smile and mostly failed—it was so good, so _easy_ , Suki could feel the tension she'd been carrying around since Ba Sing Se just sliding right out of her shoulders. And then—

"And," Katara said, and then froze and went silent. The smile was gone like someone had slapped it off, so fast it made Suki blink; blink, and then wince, once she'd figured it out.

_Yue._

The Water Tribe warriors were all glancing at each other uncertainly, and Hakoda looked from Sokka to Katara and back again.

"There was," Sokka tried, and then grimaced and looked away—Suki reached out and caught his hand.

"It's a long story," she said, quiet, and let herself think about it—losing Yue; getting her back, finding her in that cavern with Sokka, the rush of relief; losing her again—just long enough to give Hakoda a chance to see it in her face.

And Hakoda—Hakoda was a warrior, Hakoda had lost people. Hakoda knew what "long story" meant when you said it like that. He looked at Suki a moment longer and then down at Katara, and moved his hand from Katara's shoulder to her hair, gentle. "Well, as it happens," he murmured, "we have a long story of our own to tell you."

"Yeah, apparently," Sokka said, glancing past Hakoda. The Water Tribe warriors were nearly all to Hakoda's right; but to his left there were five more, all men, and they were dressed in a familiar shade of green. More Water Tribe warriors, just disguised—or at least that was what Suki had assumed, except Sokka waved a hand at them and added, "Because I have no idea who _those_ guys are."

"I would imagine you don't," Hakoda agreed. "But before we each tell our long stories, there seems to be one more person you have yet to introduce?"

"What?" Sokka said.

Hakoda raised his eyebrows, and looked pointedly behind them—back toward the long gleaming bulk of the tank, where Prince Zuko stood, still in green himself, awkwardly framed from the shoulders up by the stark black curve of the tank's insignia.

"Oh," Sokka said. "Right. That guy."

  


***

  


Sokka sucked in a breath, as though preparing to explain—and then let it back out again, staring at Prince Zuko with a bewildered sort of look. "You know," he said thoughtfully, "I'm not even really sure where to start."

"It doesn't matter," Katara said.

It came out loud, heavy, hard—like throwing a boulder, Katara thought; but then she was an Earthbender now, after all.

Sokka turned to her, startled, and even Suki's eyes were a little wide. "Katara," Suki said.

"It doesn't matter," Katara repeated, and let go of Father so she could step forward. She'd been yanked so quickly from fear to relief, she was still so tired—her cheeks were still damp, cold, from the tears that were drying on them, but she wasn't crying anymore. She didn't know how she felt, or whether she was feeling anything at all, except _certain_. "He's leaving."

Prince Zuko didn't seem to agree, judging by the way he wasn't moving. He swallowed twice and then said, "Avatar," very low. The sound of his voice alone made Katara want to punch him in the face, but she settled for ignoring him, keeping her gaze on Sokka as though Prince Zuko hadn't spoken at all.

"We're done with him," she told Sokka. "He threw fireballs at us, he attacked Suki's village, and he would've taken me and dragged me back to his father without a second thought if Yue hadn't stopped him in the north. We made a promise and we _kept_ it, we got him out. We're _done_."

"That girl," Prince Zuko said. "Your—friend. You want her back, don't you?"

Katara didn't answer, didn't so much as let herself glance at him; but she couldn't do anything about Sokka.

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, we do."

" _Sokka_ ," Katara hissed.

"And I—my uncle," Prince Zuko said. "Azula has them both—"

Suki huffed out half a laugh, even though nothing about any of this was funny. "You and your uncle think the same way," she said, shaking her head, and then, when Prince Zuko said nothing—did he look angry? Surprised? Confused? Katara didn't allow herself to check—she clarified: "He said the same thing to convince us to help him find you."

"But I have to tell you," Sokka added, "you're out of your mind if you think we're going back into Ba Sing Se."

"You won't have to," Prince Zuko said. "Azula won't leave them there. She'll take them back to the Fire Nation—"

That, finally, was enough to justify it: Katara rounded on him, all pretense that he didn't exist set aside, and crossed the space between them, half a dozen quick steps. She wanted to grab him, shake him, except she didn't want to _touch_ him; she settled for shoving him instead, the briefest possible contact a fair price to pay for the satisfaction of watching him stumble backward into the side of the tank. " _Where_?"

"Katara!" Aang said, sharp and unhappy, but Katara didn't answer, didn't look at him. He didn't understand—his people had died, but they'd done it while he was sleeping in the ice. He hadn't had to watch it happen. He didn't understand anything.

Zuko had flung out an arm fast enough to keep himself from actually falling to the ground, but even once he had his balance back under him, he didn't move. He stayed where he was, twisted half away from her, shoulders pressed against the metal behind him, and the look on his face was uncertain, wary, even as he tilted his chin up. One day, Katara thought distantly. One day the whole Fire Nation was going to know who she was and what she could do, was going to look at her exactly like that, and when it did—when it did, oh, she was going to enjoy it—

"You're not going without me."

"Tell me _where_ ," Katara said, reaching out again. She didn't know what she meant to do—slap him or shove him again, push him into the ground with her bending and leave him there—so maybe it was for the best that somebody caught her by the wrist before she could do it.

  


***

  


"Whoa, whoa, hang on," Toph said, and squeezed once, warningly, before she let Katara go. _Sugar queen_ suddenly didn't seem like the right nickname anymore, she thought. Then again, Katara probably wasn't concentrating real hard on the earth this particular second. Maybe when all you were doing was looking at him, it was hard to tell that the guy's heart was going like a rabbit dove's. "I get it, okay, you don't like him—but if he's right about where Yue will be—"

"—then we need him to _tell_ us—"

"Hey, if you want to try to beat it out of him on your own time," Toph said, "that's your business. As it is, you're half right: we need him. Unless you were planning on finding somebody else who knows their way around the Fire Nation _and_ has a really good reason to help us get there?"

Katara was silent. Except possibly for the noise of her teeth grinding.

"And, look, I told you that you were done with Earthbending," Toph added, "which means you need somebody to start teaching you Fire—"

" _Not_ him," Katara snapped.

Toph threw up her hands. Sometimes Katara had a little too much stone in her. "Come on, Katara, he's _right here_. Where else are we going to get—"

"No, hey, okay," Sokka said, before Katara could start righteously lecturing Toph the way she obviously wanted to do. "Okay, fine. Nobody said it had to be him. But maybe he knows someone else who could do it."

Katara huffed out a disbelieving breath. "As if any of them would," she said.

"I'm sorry, are we forgetting about that lady who stabbed Zhao in the back for us?" Sokka said, tapping a fingertip against his chin and wrinkling up his brow in a parody of thought. "Or the thing where yesterday the _Dragon of the West_ helped you break me out of an _Earth Kingdom_ prison?"

Katara had gone quiet again; nothing about the way she was holding her head, her shoulders, suggested that she'd given in, but she eased back half a step from the guy—who stayed back against the tank, but straightened up.

"Anyway," Sokka said, breezy, as though there hadn't been a pause—for somebody as loud and pushy as he could be, he was awfully nice sometimes, Toph thought. "Maybe he can help us find somebody—or, hey, maybe the books in the university library were right, and you could learn it from a dragon, if there are any left. Either way, we could use him."

Katara sighed, sharp and irritated, through her nose—but when she spoke again, she sounded half as angry. Twice as annoyed, hard and sour and unhappy; but half as angry. "You were the one who wanted to leave him _behind_ , in the city."

"Well, sure," Sokka conceded. "That was when I thought he was dead weight who was totally going to get us caught. We hadn't even stolen Tanky yet, we were still like three-quarters doomed. But we made it, and now—look, you have to admit that he knows more about getting around in the Fire Nation than anybody else who's willing to take our side, even if he's only doing it so he can save his uncle. And if we're seriously going to go charging into the Fire Nation to get Yue back, we could use all the help we can get."

"We can do it without him," Katara insisted.

"We _could_ , yeah, maybe. We could also slap ourselves in the face all day, but that doesn't mean we _should_. Come on, Katara—"

"We don't have to decide right now," Suki said, before Katara could reply. She still had one hand tangled up with Sokka's—she reached out with the other and set it, steady, against the ridge of Katara's shoulder; and Katara didn't soften, but she didn't shrug the hand off, either. "Let's get our things and figure out what to do with the tank—"

" _Tanky_ ," Sokka murmured, insistent.

"—with Tanky," Suki agreed, and her tone was still sober, calm, but Toph was pretty sure she'd started smiling, just a little. "And then we can talk it over some more and figure out what to do next. All right?"

Katara let out a long slow breath. "All right," she said, and then turned away from the guy without so much as a backward glance and ducked down under the tank's side.

There was a moment's silence, broken only by the sound of Katara fumbling with the hatch—Toph turned toward the Water Tribe crew, and wondered idly just how weird that conversation had sounded to everybody who _wasn't_ them.

"... So, you have a very, _very_ long story to tell us," Chief Hakoda said.

  


* * *

  


In the end, they let Sokka bid a heartfelt farewell to Tanky, and then Toph and Katara used some of the stone underneath the machine to move it over until they could push it into the sea. They'd escaped from Ba Sing Se and Azula knew it, but she didn't know how or which way they'd gone, and it was definitely for the best if it stayed that way.

But knowing that didn't prevent Sokka from making a deeply tragic face as he watched Tanky sink. Suki bit her lip to keep herself from smiling and reached out for his hand again—it had to be at least the fourth time today that she'd done it, and she felt foolish and obvious, but she couldn't seem to _stop_ —and she stood with him and waited until the last of the bubbles had surfaced.

"I'll come back for you someday, buddy," Sokka told the water mournfully, and then sighed.

Suki gave him a gentle pat on the shoulder; and he turned and looked at her, expression thoughtful and a little wry for just a moment before his eyes narrowed.

"You want to laugh at me, don't you?" he said.

"A little," Suki agreed, and let the smile show at last—and then, impulsive, leaned over and kissed his cheek. "Come on," she said, and tugged on his hand. "There's a couple of long stories waiting for us."

  


*

  


In terms of the time it took, in the end it was almost a perfect trade. Hakoda told them everything the Water Tribe warriors had been doing, from the moment they'd left Bato behind in the west to saving the day in Bokjeo, plus their trip to the South Yellow Sea, which had meant leaving the rest of the tribe behind in the southeast—"and no doubt they are very curious as to where we are and what has happened to us," Hakoda said, looking rueful, "for I am sure they have neither seen nor heard anything of us since we sailed up the river."

All the way to the almost ridiculous situation they'd found themselves in when they were given custody of Kuei's messengers—and then Katara had interrupted with a gasp, saying, "You—you were the ones who were sent to Shuming Wo," and then it was her turn to give the whole ridiculous eclipse explanation yet again, except two or three times as long as usual with everything that had happened to them in Ba Sing Se hitched onto the back end.

"Well," one of the messengers said, when Katara was finally finished. "That clarifies a great deal." He exchanged quick glances with the other four. "I suppose that is as worthy a task as any to undertake next, if we cannot return to Ba Sing Se."

"What task?" Toph said.

"The original message we were intended to share said nothing of this." The man shrugged. "We were only to request that a delegation be sent to Ba Sing Se to discuss a matter of grave military importance—I assume this was the matter in question?"

"Yes," Katara said.

"At that time, I can only guess it was judged better to be vague than to risk the Fire Nation learning what we knew. But now—" The man angled a glance over his shoulder, in the direction of the distant smoke still rising. "Now there is no one left but us to explain the situation. Perhaps the remaining free kingdoms will still be able to make use of the knowledge, one way or another."

"Well!" Hakoda said, and slapped his hands against his thighs. "If we must bid you farewell, then we had better do it properly."

Between the supplies on the Fire Nation ship and what was still in their packs, there was more than enough food to make a midday feast—and, better still, an endless well of fond chatter, teasing, and laughter. When the food was nearly all gone, one of the Water Tribe women started asking Suki questions about her fans, and it became clear that it would be easier to show than tell: Suki hauled Sokka to his feet and then tossed him a fan, and grinned at him when he caught it neatly by the handle.

They were maybe halfway through a quick set of paired exercises when Suki noticed. The Water Tribe warriors were seated, all in a circle, hooting at and cheering for Sokka; Katara was next to her father, Toph not far away and blithely making blind jokes with the Earth Kingdom messengers; but where was Prince Zuko?

Suki spun, ducked, and then on her next spin, a slower one, deliberately looked away from her own outstretched hand and let her eyes sweep over the ground around them. Plains, all plains—the ground rolled a little, but not high enough or low enough to hide Zuko unless he were crawling, and he couldn't possibly expect to escape Katara by getting into the water—

A shadow. Suki waited until she had the chance to turn around again and check: it _was_ him. He'd tucked himself away by the bow of the ship, but the shade it cast wasn't quite enough to hide him with noon so barely past. And he was just standing there, silent, awkward—had he even bothered getting any food?

It took her another turn, past Sokka and around, to realize that he was moving; she almost stopped and shouted a warning, except he wasn't actually moving very much. His hands twitched, now and then—they were in loose fists, twisting one way or another for a moment before relaxing again—and he had one foot just a bit in front of the other, his weight shifting forward and then back, forward again, no obvious pattern.

Except, Suki saw after another couple minutes, there _was_ a pattern: Sokka. The way Zuko was moving matched up almost exactly to Sokka, a beat behind and sometimes a little more aggressive, and all at once Suki knew what he was doing and why. She'd seen her girls doing it, back at home—impatient, bouncing on the balls of their feet while they waited for a sparring match to finish, and sometimes half fighting it themselves while they stood there. And Zuko—Zuko had those paired swords he liked so much. Or did he? Even if he'd had weapons with him when the Dai Li came for him, Suki thought, they would never have let him keep them.

She flared her fan and whipped it toward Sokka, snapping it closed just long enough to swing it past his outstretched arm without hurting him before letting the fan's own weight pull it open again—and he did nearly the same thing just above her knee, in a move that would have sliced her thigh open if he'd timed it wrong. But he didn't time it wrong: he was perfect, _they_ were perfect, and she didn't realize until she'd stopped moving that she was grinning at him fiercely, teeth showing.

The Water Tribe warriors didn't know how hard it had been, how far they'd come. They hadn't been there in the training hall on that quiet spring morning when he'd knelt to her, or watched her put Kyoshi's paint on him for the first time; they hadn't seen any of the long slow hours she'd spent showing him how to move his wrists to make the heavy fans work for him instead of against him. But they cheered anyway, loud, and Suki beamed at Sokka helplessly and then turned away before she could give in to the urge to tackle him to the ground and kiss him all over his stupid face.

She swung her fan shut and accepted a half-dozen quick congratulations, pats on the back and friendly admiration, and then they let her through—the Water Tribe warriors were kind to her, but Sokka was the one who was theirs. Which was fine, because this way she could probably talk to Zuko for at least a minute or two without anybody interrupting.

  


*

  


He saw her coming and looked away, as if to ignore her before she could ignore him first—but she didn't stride past him, didn't veer away to head up the ramp into the ship, and when she came to a stop a few feet from him and cleared her throat, he grudgingly looked up again.

"You use swords, right?" she said.

"Yes."

"Two of them," Suki prodded.

Zuko's jaw worked for a moment, but he was smart, or maybe scared; he didn't glare. "Yes."

"I'm guessing the Dai Li didn't give you a chance to use them."

"No," Zuko agreed. "No, they're with my—"

He cut himself off so quickly Suki couldn't even begin to guess what word it was he didn't want to say—not even the first sound had made it out.

"Well," Suki said after a moment, when Zuko didn't seem likely to continue. "This ship they stole might be a scouting vessel, but it probably still has an armory. You should take a look and see if there are any decent blades in there."

That, at last, put an expression on his face that wasn't wariness, distaste, or frustration: just sheer surprise.

"What?" Suki said.

"You—why would you tell me that? I'm the last person you should want taking my pick of a Fire Navy armory."

Ah, Suki thought. He'd misunderstood.

She took her time, because if there was anything that leading the Kyoshi Warriors had taught her, it was to not do anything in haste unless you had to. Quickly, sure; in haste, no. She looked out over the water, squinting against the midday sun, and took one deep breath, and then, slow, a second. She let herself feel the weight of the fan that was still in her hand, let herself think about all the things she could do with it when all she was up against was one unarmed boy; and then she stopped thinking about those things, and carefully turned the fan in her hand so that her grip was holding it shut.

"I think there's something I should clear up," she said, meeting his gaze again. "I'm not on your side, and you should never make the mistake of thinking that I am. You want something and you think helping Katara will let you get it; and I'm on Katara's side. As long as you're with her, I want you armed and armored and everything in between—I want you to have fifty swords, I want you setting people on fire with a flick of your fingers." She paused and leaned in a little, so that he would try to lean back—try and then run up against the side of the ship, which he did, and she could see in his face how abruptly conscious he was that there was nowhere for him to go. "But when you attacked my village, you hurt a lot of people that I care about. You hurt them and you didn't even care—you weren't even trying to. You weren't thinking about them at all, except as something that was in your way. I'm not going to forget that."

He said nothing.

"Do you understand?" Suki said, very calmly.

He opened his mouth—closed it—opened it again. "Yes," he said at last, low, and then looked away.

"Good," Suki told him, nodding once, and then she turned and walked off, unhurried, one deliberate step at a time.

  


* * *

  


"If you tell me we are going to keep sitting here lazing about, I will be forced to do something drastic."

Itara pursed her lips and did not let herself smile.

"Scream," Akkama elaborated after a moment, gesturing in a gleaming sweep with her extremely large knife. "Vomit. _Cry_."

"You have never cried in your life," Itara said, very calm. "You do not know _how_ to cry."

"I could learn," Akkama muttered, and then flipped the knife in her hand so the blade spun, flashed, fell—a leaping fish. Akkama was very good at throwing knives.

And, truthfully, she was not the only one whose impatience was getting the best of them, though she was perhaps the loudest about it. It had been weeks, nearly a month, since Hakoda had left them behind to sail off up the Tai San after what had looked like at least half of the Fire Navy, and there had been no sign yet of his return. There was no reason to assume that he was dead, either; but whether he had fallen in battle or had been captured, or had simply decided to wander about the Earth Kingdoms on foot for a while, _something_ had prevented him from coming back to them.

And it was not as some of the Earth Kingdom soldiers liked to say: Hakoda was not the firewood beneath their pot or the head to their snake, or whatever other overcomplicated idiom Min Kyung might murmur behind his sleeve. But he _was_ their chief, and their leader, and their friend; and even Akkama, impatient as she was, did not like to think of leaving him behind. Or those who had gone with him—sisters, brothers, cousins, all.

But the kingdom of Bongye was as secure now as it could hope to be while still at war with the Fire Nation. And, as a rule, the people of the Southern Water Tribe were not a people much used to inaction.

"Nothing remains for us to _do_ here," Akkama said, as though she'd sensed the direction of Itara's thoughts and sought to press the advantage. "The Fire Nation has turned its attention elsewhere—the evidence we have seen of that is why Hakoda left as he did in the first place."

"And if he and those who went with him have been captured," Itara said, "or discovered—if they have been injured in battle, or separated, and each should fight their way free and come here—"

"Then they will be tended to!" Akkama threw up her hands. "Bongye owes us a debt and will not forget it. They will be tended to, Min Kyung will tell them where we have gone; we will leave them a trail as wide and clear as that of a bloodied tiger seal."

"And are you truly so eager to rush to battle?" Itara said, allowing her tone to turn a little chiding. They had suffered losses already, greater ones than any of them liked to think about—and would suffer more, if they left the safety of Bokjeo's walls and went out to find themselves a new fight.

But, of course, Akkama was no weedy youth to be talked into second-guessing herself. She gave Itara a flat look and leveled the knife at her. "That we are here at all is because Hakoda saw a need and offered us up to fill it. We would never have come were we not already agreed that there are things worth defending that have no defenders except us, or too few of them. There are many people who need our help—it is only that none of them are in Bokjeo any longer."

"Akkama," Itara said, and was grateful when Unaya came skidding in to interrupt, because she did not know what words she meant to put after.

"Akkama, Itara," Unaya said, bright-eyed—she, too, was glad to have something to do, Itara thought, even if it was only to run and fetch them from wherever she'd come from. "There are ships—ships in the bay."

"Hakoda?" Akkama said, with sudden close attention, but Unaya shook her head.

"We do not think so," Unaya said, and then hesitated. "That is—well. Kozuda thinks you had better come and look for yourselves."

  


*

  


The harbor of Bokjeo was walled—it very nearly hadn't been, when they'd first arrived, but given a little breathing room, a few legions of Bongye's best Earthbenders had repaired the walls with ease. There were hardly any scorch marks on them these days.

Kozuda was perched on the walltop, because of course he was: he had spent more time on the walltop than not since Hakoda's departure. Akkama had more than once compared him—not unfavorably—to a polar bear dog, left behind while others ventured out on a hunt. And Itara could not deny that it was easy enough to imagine him still there even after the war was over, after his hair had gone as gray as Akkama's, waiting patiently for Hakoda to return and tell him he could move.

Itara had looked up from the inner wall or the shore many times and seen him there, a borrowed spyglass held to his eye, with an easy patient stance that said he intended to remain so for hours if allowed. But now that was all gone—the spyglass was still there, of course, but Kozuda was leaning out over the walltop, frowning fiercely, the line of his shoulders bunched up tight.

And when they drew nearer, it was easy to see why. There were ships in the bay—more than one, which meant it was not Hakoda, or it was but he had been followed, and that could not be a good thing—

"A Fire Nation fleet?" Akkama said, with poorly-disguised interest.

Kozuda must have heard her, but he remained as he was, the glass to his eye, for a long moment—and that meant the answer must be no, Itara thought, for surely if the fleet were Fire Nation he would have spoken up with urgency.

But if the fleet were Earth Kingdom, why would he have asked Unaya to fetch them, and why would he still be frowning so thunderously?

"See for yourself," he said at last, and handed Akkama the spyglass.

She looked, sweeping the end back and forth so as to survey the whole bay, and then she also frowned. "Huh," she said.

"What is it?" Itara said.

"There are Fire Nation _ships_ ," Akkama said, "but I do not think it is a Fire Nation _fleet_."

"Perhaps they have been captured," Kozuda said.

"If they have," Akkama said, leaning a little further over the walltop, "then their crews have also been bribed, or tortured, or otherwise bent to service. I see more than one Firebender—and they are not all on Earth ships, but neither are they all on Fire ships. They are—they are _shared_ , I think," and her tone was wholly disbelieving.

And for good reason: there were exceptions now and then, but most Fire Nation soldiers and sailors were not willing to be captured or ransomed. The Fire Lord's explicit policy, Itara suspected. Some of the soldiers who had been defeated at Bokjeo had killed each other rather than be taken, when they had found their line of retreat cut off.

"Perhaps it is an Earth kingdom that has been captured, then," Itara said, though she knew even as she said it that it made only a little bit more sense. Perhaps— _perhaps_ —if they truly felt themselves in direst need, a victorious Fire Nation fleet might repair and make use of Earth ships they had damaged, instead of scuttling them or leaving them to burn. But the Fire Nation's contempt for Earth Kingdom vessels was well known; it was not likely. And Itara had seen with her own eyes the great fleet whose movements Hakoda had left them to assess. There had been no other fleet since—so what victory could there have been for the Fire Lord on the west side of the bay? What attack could have been launched, powerful enough to conquer Cheolla or Yeolhae and yet subtle enough for Kozuda and his spyglass to have somehow missed any sign of it?

"Well!" Akkama said, tossing the spyglass back to Kozuda with sudden energy. "Perhaps we had better sail out there and ask."

"And if they sink us for it?" Kozuda said, severe, shaking his head—but this was a fight Akkama would win, Itara thought, because now she had a reason beyond her own impatience. And she had not been wrong, before: surely they could leave word for Hakoda, surely he would have no trouble finding them. Bato had done it, traveling three-quarters of a continent alone.

They were here because Hakoda had wished to make a difference. If they continued to do so without him—oh, it was a crime in the Earth Kingdoms, in the Fire Nation, to act without orders, but Hakoda was not a general and they were not his soldiers. They were here to defend what was defenseless, and Bokjeo was not defenseless any longer.

"If they sink us for it, we will have earned it," Itara said, and watched Akkama's smile turn fierce.

  


* * *

  


Hakoda let his head drop back against the hull of the ship and closed his eyes.

The rest of himself, he kept very still, or at least he tried to. Katara had stayed by him all day, had told him a very great deal about Suki—happily—and then about Toph—loudly—and then, very low and a little bit halting, about Princess Yue; and then she had fallen asleep against his side, and he wouldn't wake her now for the world.

While she had been awake, he had made an effort to listen with the kind of calm she seemed to need from him, to smile at the right times and look grave and sorry when it was warranted—but now that she wasn't looking at him anymore, he could admit to himself that he had no idea how to feel about it all. There was a strangeness to it even when the story of her travels was set aside; to have Katara, his Katara, here in the Earth Kingdoms, and not even fighting at his side but simply crossing his path on a quest all her own. She was so much taller than he remembered.

And then everything she had had to tell him—it was a miracle his head was even able to hold it. Just hearing her talk about the North at all was a wonder, when there had been no word from them since nearly the beginning of the war, since Mother had made her way south; and then Katara had, between yawns, finished that part of the story by explaining that she had traveled to the spirit world, healed the moon, and become the ocean. Legends rose up in the wake of every Avatar, of course, but that— _that_ was a story that would last, that would be told the way Mother already told the stories of Clever Tukula, of Itim the Hunter, of Hakira paddling out into the ancient spirit-ocean to save the new-made stars from drowning. And thinking of some great-grandchild of his, gray-haired and wise, leaning over the fire at night to tell sleepy children the story of Katara—it made Hakoda feel like he needed to catch his breath and couldn't. And there was so much more still left undone, undone and Katara's responsibility to do; and Katara had never, ever liked to leave a thing unfinished—

"How many people do you think ever get to say the Avatar fell asleep on them?"

Hakoda smiled even before he turned his head—Sokka had kept his voice low, but it still wasn't hard to tell that it was he who'd spoken. "Whatever the breadth of their ranks," Hakoda murmured, as solemnly as he was able, "I am honored to be numbered among them."

Sokka grinned, bright, and lowered himself to the deck. It wasn't quite evening, but still late enough that the light had changed, and left Sokka's face washed half in shadow; it was easy for a moment to look at him and pretend that two years hadn't passed, that he was no older, no different, and had never gone anywhere Hakoda hadn't.

It was a good moment. But, Hakoda thought, it wasn't fair to Sokka to hold onto it, and when it passed, Hakoda let it go. They still had not gone ice-dodging, and probably wouldn't have the opportunity to do it properly for at least another year, at best. That didn't mean Sokka was a child.

So Hakoda should not talk to him as though he were one. "She would answer me as honestly as she could, I know," Hakoda said, "and yet she still might not be able to tell me the truth, so I will ask you. Is she all right?"

Sokka looked at him, and then away; the amusement had drained out of his face and left it strange, sharp-edged, fierce and weary at the same time. "I think so," he said slowly, and then sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. "It's been hard sometimes, and I won't pretend it hasn't. A lot of things have gone wrong. But we've done the best we knew how, and we're—we aren't going to stop. She isn't going to stop, and we're going to help her, and she knows that. So I think she's all right."

Hakoda watched him for a moment, and then said, careful, "And you? Are you all right?"

That, at last, drew Sokka's gaze out of the middle distance and back to Hakoda. He blinked, and then his brow furrowed. He looked as though he were surprised—as though, Hakoda thought, that were not a question he had expected would be asked.

"Yeah," he said, "yeah, I'm—sure. I'm fine." He glanced, deliberate, at Katara's sleeping face, and then his mouth quirked confidingly. "I'm not the one everybody's expecting to save the world."

"No," Hakoda agreed, but he did not look away; Sokka had answered, and fairly enough, but there was something about it that had the feeling of a dodge, a deflection, and Hakoda was not satisfied with it. "I have missed you a great deal," he tried, after a moment's pause.

Sokka groaned—quietly, Hakoda thought, still so mindful of his sister even in the midst of his dramatics—and threw a hand over his eyes, embarrassed. " _Father_."

"I have not seen you in years," Hakoda said firmly. "I am allowed."

Sokka huffed as though to disagree, but said nothing.

Hakoda hesitated—but it was down to nothing but luck, _such_ luck, that they had all found one another here at all, and who knew when they would see each other again? Or whether they would. Hakoda did not like to think it, but he was not a fool; surely Sokka would be all right, with the Avatar and a healer and his sister at his side, all in one, but Hakoda might not be so lucky. No, he had to say it, and he had to say it now. "I have missed you a great deal. And you should know—you should know that I have imagined, more times than I can tell you, what it would have been like if you had come with me.

"I could, perhaps, have set aside tradition. You were so nearly old enough, and we had too few warriors as it was. We keep the old ways for good reason, but I could have insisted. I chose not to, but there were many days when I wished that I had, many days when I wondered whether I had chosen rightly." And other days when he had been sure that he had—that the choice had been hidebound, and, worse than that, selfish; but that Hakoda would rather be hidebound and selfish than have to watch Sokka's gut be opened by a Fire Nation blade—

But Sokka should not hear that. Hakoda cleared his throat, and said, "But I can tell you now, in all honesty, that I am glad to have chosen as I did."

He'd lowered his gaze to the deck while he spoke, but he raised it now to Sokka's face and could not decide what he saw there: relief? Uncertainty? Wariness? All three, in a flickered progression so rapid Hakoda could not quite pull them apart?

"Glad," Sokka echoed, and then paused and wet his lips. "Because—because you—"

He trailed off, and Hakoda took the opportunity to finish the thought for him. "Because I am so grateful to think you were able to be there for your sister," Hakoda said, "and because I cannot bear to think how much harder all this would have been for her if you had not."

Sokka looked at him and then off toward the rail, blinking—three times, four, five, though perhaps it was only because the dying light of the sun was now shining fully into his eyes. He laughed a little, barely more than a stuttered breath, and ran a hand over his hair. "Funny you should say that," he said finally. "Sometimes I felt like—" He stopped, shook his head, and then started again. "I mean, Katara, she's—she had her know-it-all dead guy, right, and two master benders, and a Kyoshi warrior. And _herself_ , let's not forget, which is like having four more benders plus somebody who's really handy with a club. Sometimes it just didn't seem like there was all that much that I—you know, that I _added_ —"

Hakoda had been listening patiently, struggling to figure out where Sokka intended to go with this, but all at once it was clear to him. He said instantly, "Nonsense—"

Somewhat more loudly than he should have, he thought, but then it turned out not to matter, because he was almost immediately drowned out by Katara's " _What_?", nearly a shout, from about the level of his elbow.

"What—you—you were supposed to be asleep!"

"Well, I'm not," Katara said, sitting up and crossing her arms, looking downright thunderous. "Are you serious?"

Sokka opened his mouth again and then closed it, shrugging one shoulder with a stiff, clumsy motion.

"Oh, _please_ ," Katara said, and shuffled forward onto her knees so she could catch Sokka's wrists in her hands. "Sokka, if I want benders or soldiers or—or spirits, whatever, they're all over the place." Her tone was wry, but she shook him by her grip on his arms after she said it, emphatic. "We can hardly go anywhere without tripping over them."

Sokka snorted an amused breath out his nose, and met her gaze.

Katara shook him again, more gently, and then let go—or, no, just loosened her hold enough to shift until she was holding his hands instead. "But there's only one of _you_ ," she said. "And maybe I could've done this without you, or maybe I couldn't have—it doesn't matter, because I wouldn't _want_ to. It would've been so much worse—" and then she seemed to suddenly run out of words, and instead of trying to keep talking, she lurched forward and threw her arms around his neck.

She couldn't see the way he squeezed his eyes shut as his arms came up to hug her back—but Hakoda could, and he watched, chest aching, until Sokka eased them open again, blinked twice, and then said into Katara's hair, shakily, "Right? You probably would have forgotten how to have any fun at all."

Katara laughed helplessly into his shoulder, and then drew back far enough to punch him in the arm.

"Now, now, children," Hakoda said, mock-stern, as he might have when—when they _were_ children still, he thought, throat tight, and then he caught each of them by the hand and squeezed, and when they smiled at him, he smiled back.

  


***

  


After the Kyoshi warrior had walked away from him, no one else had come near him; no one else had so much as looked at him, and Zuko could not say he was sorry for it.

He did not—he did not know what to think, what to say, what to _do_. He was not even entirely sure how he felt. Everything about this day had almost the quality of a dream, as though if Zuko moved too quickly or thought too hard about how little sense it all made, he would come to understand that it could not possibly be real, and wake. It reminded him of standing in the street with Qingying, the way he had half-expected Father to _know_ and somehow appear—to punish him, to inflict reality upon him, to tell him that what was happening was too ridiculous to be permitted to happen and would therefore stop. And yet—

And yet here he was. He still did not know whether he would have said yes to Azula, whether he would have gone with her; but now it did not matter. That choice had been taken from him by the Avatar. The Avatar, whom he had hunted from one end of the earth to the other and who had, weeks after he had as good as given up on ever finding her again, walked up to him of her own free will and seized him by the wrist. He had escaped Ba Sing Se with her and been brought out to the middle of nowhere by her, and now he was sitting next to a Fire Nation ship full of Water Tribe soldiers, just waiting for her to refuse to help him find Uncle. Half of his mind was still shouting at him to chain her up, to hold a sword to her throat again and _make_ the rest of them sail him back to the Fire Nation. That was the sort of thing Azula would do; and it would work if she tried it, Zuko thought, but he, as ever, was not Azula.

_Perhaps you should try being who you are, instead._

Zuko closed his eyes and let his head tip back. Was this what he was condemned to, until he found Uncle again? Repeating Uncle's useless, cryptic admonitions to himself, because Uncle was not there to invent new ones? What was next—was he going to start drinking tea by the potful?

"Here."

Zuko's eyes snapped open, and his hands came up defensively. He was sitting in the corner created by the ship's bow ramp intersecting with the forward hull—he had chosen the spot specifically to make it difficult for anyone to sneak up on him, though of course no strategic positioning could help him if he kept _shutting his eyes_. Azula would have laughed herself sick.

The Water Tribe soldier who was looking at him, though, was not laughing. She was above him, perched on the edge of the bow ramp over his head, a black silhouette against the increasingly dark sky—and she reared back even as Zuko was looking, which he realized after a moment was to protect the bowl she had been lowering toward him from the sudden wild motion of his arms.

She steadied herself, and they stared at each other in silence for what felt like an excruciatingly long time.

"If I wanted to kill you," she said eventually, "I would not use a bowl of rice."

Zuko said nothing.

She looked at him a moment longer and sighed, one long breath through her nose; and then all at once she moved again, leaping over him and down to the ground. She landed in a neat crouch, without stumbling—she couldn't have afforded to, because now Zuko could see that she was holding a bowl in her other hand, too.

Now that he was not looking at her upside down and backwards, it was easier to decipher the expression on her face: her gaze was sharp, maybe a little grudging, but she didn't look angry and she didn't look cruel. "Soldier" was perhaps not the right word, Zuko thought, because she had no more of a uniform than anyone else in the Water Tribe seemed to, but her stance and her shoulders, the way she held herself, all said she didn't particularly fear that Zuko would outmaneuver or overpower her.

"Here," she said, and held out one bowl again.

Zuko eyed her for a moment and then took it. It was foolish and he shouldn't trust her, but he did not know what she was doing or why—perhaps this was traditional in the Water Tribe. Perhaps if he rejected the bowl, he also rejected their hospitality, and for all he knew she would then consider herself within her rights to kill him. Or perhaps the bowl, the rice, was already poisoned, and she only meant to trick him into eating it.

She looked at him and her eyes narrowed. She sighed again and reached out, and Zuko would have struck her hand away except the bowl prevented it; so instead he ended up holding it for her, while she grasped the chopsticks that were leaning against the side and used them to stir the rice. After a few rounds, she raised her eyebrows—ah, she meant to prove it safe, and had stirred to keep him from claiming she had knowingly taken an untainted bite.

Zuko glanced down at it and then nodded to her; it looked like she had mixed it all together well enough. She took a hunk of rice and ate it, her eyebrows still raised, and then she handed the chopsticks back to him.

"If I wanted to kill you," she repeated, "I would not use a bowl of rice," but she sounded flat and a little amused, not hateful.

Zuko stared down into the bowl, fiddling with the chopsticks. It was only rice, some vegetables, what might be a little dried meat on the side—but, truth be told, he was hungry.

He looked up in time to catch her fishing a piece of radish out of her own bowl; she had chopsticks, too, and was ungraceful but not inexpert. "I didn't think you—"

He stopped and bit his lip, but she had heard enough to guess what he'd been about to say. "We don't," she said, "not always—and not like these," and she lifted her chopsticks up and clacked them together. "We use bone, not wood. And they are not very much good for skinning a tiger seal." She bared her teeth at him, not precisely a smile. "Knives are better."

Zuko swallowed. She didn't seem to like him much better than the Kyoshi warrior did; and not understanding motives was dangerous. "Why did you bring me this?"

She did not answer right away. She stared at him for a moment, and then down at her bowl, and then off toward the water; and then her gaze returned to him and she tapped one chopstick against the side of her bowl. "A week ago, I would not have," she said.

"But," Zuko prompted, when she seemed disinclined to continue.

Her face went still, unreadable. "But it is not a week ago," she said slowly, "and yesterday I was very thoroughly reminded that it is possible for even people you hate to surprise you."

Zuko was not sure what expression that put on his face, but whatever it was, it made her mouth quirk.

"Oh," she said, "and a week ago you thought you would be eating supper with the Southern Water Tribe?"

"No," Zuko conceded. He hesitated a moment, and then pressed on, because at this point it could do no harm: "The Kyoshi warrior said that the ship's armory might have swords I could use."

"It does," the woman said, and then lifted another chunk of rice to her mouth. "I will show you." She swallowed, and added, "Suki."

"What?"

"Suki. That is her name. If you are going to travel with Katara, you should probably learn to use it."

Zuko pinched off a bit of meat and slid it into his mouth. Tough, stringy, a bit saltier than he'd like—but not bad. He had eaten worse, since his exile. "I don't think it will matter," he admitted, very low. It was foolish to say it aloud, but what would this Water Tribe woman do to him for showing weakness? Hate him more?

The woman shrugged, easy. "Katara is angry," she said, "but not foolish, and right now you are useful. I do not think we will leave here without you."

Zuko looked at her, wide-eyed—he couldn't stop himself. The Avatar agreeing to let him come with her, to _help_ him, was even more ridiculous and impossible than everything else that had come to pass today; which, he supposed, meant there was still a chance that it would happen. What had she said, only a moment ago? _It is possible for even people you hate to surprise you._

It sounded like something Uncle might say.

"But you will be more useful with swords," the woman added. "So: eat, and then we can find you some."

  


* * *

  


Being held captive by Princess Azula was probably not usually as pleasant as this, Yue suspected; but having them moved to a suitably uncomfortable location would surely only have given General Iroh an opportunity to act—which would clearly have been unwise—and it was not as though the king's palace were short of rooms.

As it was, the only thing that was unpleasant about the large, comfortable set of chambers they had been sealed into was that the doors and windows had been removed—or, more accurately, walled over, stone shoved securely into place across them by the Dai Li, so that the rooms were lit only by the green glow of crystal lanterns. Yue had woken, blinked, stretched, and then realized she had absolutely no way to determine whether it was midnight or morning.

"Good day."

Yue glanced over her shoulder. She hadn't precisely _forgotten_ that she shared her lovely cell with the Fire Lord's older brother; it was only that it was so—ludicrous, so incredibly unlikely, that even when she was looking right at him it still almost felt untrue.

The Dragon of the West inclined his head to her, gracious, and then glanced up at the blank stone where one window of this room had once been. "At least I think it is day," he added. "I woke earlier and there was no sound from the corridor—but since then I have heard some people passing and talking."

Yue nodded—it made sense—and then looked at him thoughtfully. They had not really had much time to talk, before; it had already been growing late by the time Azula had had them brought here, and they had both been more than usually fatigued, with all the bending they had had to do down in the catacombs. They had talked a bit about tea but had quickly been told to shut up, and then they had been brought to these chambers and Iroh had advised rest. "We will want it," he had said, "and may not be able to get it later, depending on what my niece intends."

And he had been right. But now—now there was nothing in the way; and if she were to have any hope of trusting him, as she had agreed to try to do, there were a few things she needed to understand.

"Your niece," she said, "and your brother. You used to be—more like them." Would he agree or disagree? Did he think of himself as changed, better—superior, even, and thereby entitled to a certain degree of self-righteousness? Or did he regard his past actions as still part of him, still a thing within him that he must always guard against? And if he did: was he right, and did Yue need to guard against that in him for herself?

General Iroh gazed at her for a moment, and then smiled—a quiet smile, rueful, not especially amused. "I used to be much worse," he said. "I paid my niece little mind; she was my younger brother's younger child, it seemed unlikely she would ever rule, and to the man that I was then, that meant she did not matter. I do not expect she has forgiven me for that. And my brother—" He fell silent briefly, and then shook his head. "I took the throne for granted. It was my birthright; I had been told as much since before I understood the words that were used to tell me so. But Ozai _wanted_ it. It meant something to him, and there was much he wished to do with it if it were by some chance to become his.

"In that sense, at least, he may perhaps be a better Fire Lord than I would ever have been. He cares very deeply for his nation, and for the things he is able to do for it as its king. The man I was could not have said as much."

"The man you were," Yue murmured.

General Iroh closed his eyes. "I do not seek to excuse myself, Princess," he said, very low, and then he opened his eyes again and looked at her. "But tell me: are you the same girl you were when the Avatar first visited your city?"

Yue tipped her head back against the wall and let herself think about it. "No," she agreed slowly. "No, I suppose I am not," and she did not mean to say it but found herself continuing anyway, almost confidingly: "I should be the last to tell anyone they cannot change their path by learning a new thing, or by doing what no one had expected of them."

General Iroh smiled, then, and this time it was a true smile. "Ah, yes," he said, and then tilted his head—confiding right back at her, his tone warm and quiet. "I would not have expected to see a princess of the Northern Water Tribe teaching Waterbending to the Avatar. But I am glad to be surprised."

Yue beamed at him, delighted—and, oh, how strange it was, how very far away she was from her old self, that she should have lost Master Pakku's approval and gained a Fire Nation general's, and feel pleased about both!

But she shouldn't allow herself to be distracted. "Your niece—what will she do with us?"

General Iroh's expression turned sober, and he looked away, his brow furrowing. "To be honest with you, it had been my understanding that she planned upon my death—I can think of no other reason why my brother should have sent her after me and my nephew. That she told us outright that she did not mean to kill us is something of a surprise." He hesitated. "I would like to hope that, whatever it was she first intended to do when she found me, she has—she has chosen not to do it, because somewhere in her heart, some part of her could not bear it. But that may be an old man's self-indulgence," he added, shaking his head wearily. "She deserves the opportunity to discover a new way of being, as much as I ever deserved it; but I do not know whether she will choose to seize it when it comes."

"She spoke as though she meant for you to be placed within the Fire Lord's grasp," Yue said, remembering the way Princess Azula had phrased it, the easy tone she'd used: _Father can lop your head off himself_. Surely burning would be a more appropriate way for the Fire Lord to kill someone who'd displeased him—but then perhaps in the Fire Nation, burning was an honorable death. Yue was not sure.

"Yes," General Iroh agreed. "And I have no doubt that he will come here as soon as he is able. But Azula will wish to deliver the news of this victory herself, and she will not leave me behind in this city." His voice turned wry. "I have no doubt that Ba Sing Se remembers me. If nothing else, she would not be pleased if it became known that I were held here, and ten thousand people stormed the palace to take my head for themselves."

As though to illustrate his words, the sound of footsteps came from the hall—many of them, overlapping. Not ten thousand citizens' worth, but still, a small crowd at least. Yue glanced at the wall and then back at General Iroh.

"Ah," he said, looking at the wall himself. "That will be the answer to your question now, I think."

  


***

  


Even knowing what was on the other side, Azula still felt a rush of satisfaction to have the Dai Li bend away the wall and reveal Uncle and the northern princess. In her hands, at last—of course, Zuzu had gotten away, but surely that could be remedied soon enough. Father would be very pleased to have Uncle secured, and, too, with whatever information he could share about the Avatar. And the princess would also undoubtedly prove useful in that regard.

"You both slept well, I hope?" Azula inquired delicately, once the scrape and rumble of shifting stone had died away.

"Oh, indeed," Uncle said, inclining his head. Always so polite, Uncle. "I imagine this room was quite lovely, when it had windows."

"You're lucky to have the opportunity to get used to the view," Azula told him. "I doubt Boiling Rock will have any more impressive vistas to offer."

The princess didn't know what that meant, it was easy enough to see that on her face, but Uncle did; still, he conducted himself well, absorbing the news of where Azula intended to take them without flinching. "I'm sure you are right," he said.

"Oh, I am," Azula assured him, easy. Perhaps she was indulging herself a little too much—it was just that it was so _satisfying_ , to have finally caught him. To have finally _beaten_ him: Uncle, Uncle himself, who even now was regarded by a misguided few as Father's equal, or even superior. "And I would tell you that the Avatar will be joining you there soon except that she probably won't. Not that we won't find her—but I expect Father will have her executed in very short order. And you along with her, if you haven't died already."

"Oh, we will have," the princess from the north said.

Very calmly, Azula thought, for someone speaking of her own death, and she could not help but raise a curious eyebrow.

"Have you forgotten already?" the princess murmured, blue gaze placid. "It is as I have told you: you will have to have killed me before you will ever lay hands on Katara."

Ah, yes—she had said so before, hadn't she? Along with some nonsense about having told Azula but not told Azula, cryptic riddles. She and Uncle would probably get along very well indeed. "Why?" Azula said, stepping forward as though she were genuinely interested in the answer. As though it mattered what this odd mad girl said. "Why place so much faith in the Avatar? She can't do anything for you—surely you must see that. She ran away and left you here, in my hands. I will take you to my father; and my father will learn whatever it is you know and then he will kill you. And he will kill your father," Azula added thoughtfully, "and he will kill your mother. He will kill everyone you ever knew, everyone who ever mattered to you— _including_ the Avatar. And you won't be able to stop him."

The princess was silent for a moment—and rightly so, for the thought had to be frightening to her. The Northern Water Tribe had not yet seen true war; but they would very soon, with the south so close to defeat. It was about time some of them learned what that would mean.

"Do you want that to happen?"

Azula felt herself making two mistakes in the same instant: she blinked, which must surely have given away her startlement just as clearly as the way she said, "What?"

The princess from the north probably wanted to smirk at that, to gloat over having surprised so basic a response out of Azula—but she didn't. She looked at Azula carefully and then said again, "Do you want that to happen?"

  


***

  


Princess Azula narrowed her eyes, and then smiled at Yue; and the smile was as Yue might have expected, slow and even and confident, but what she said was, "It is the Fire Lord's will. That's the only thing that matters."

Which, however threatening it sounded, was not truly an answer. And why should she choose not to answer? What could she possibly fear to say? Not "yes"—that would only have been expected. And not "no"—Yue could not imagine that it would ever even cross Princess Azula's mind to say such a thing aloud, let alone to think it at all. Which left—

Which left, perhaps, _I don't know_.

  


*

  


Azula did not spend any more time talking to them after that; she gestured sharply to the Dai Li instead, and within moments they had opened a slanting path downward through the floor. At the other end was a much more carefully-made tunnel, and a Fire Nation machine—not stamped and shining, as Yue might have expected, but instead entirely bare of any Fire Nation insignia, and painted the drab colors of dirt and tall grass.

And beside the machine were three distinctly familiar people.

Yue couldn't exactly say she was _glad_ to see Ty Lee—nor the quiet girl with the knives and the boy with the glaive. But it was nonetheless something of a relief to think she would not be trapped inside that machine with no one but Princess Azula and the Dragon of the West. However much Yue wished to trust General Iroh, he was still the Fire Lord's brother; and perhaps Azula still intended to kill them both or perhaps she did not, but traveling to the Fire Nation in a confined space with her was not how Yue would like to discover which it was.

And Ty Lee was Azula's friend, and would probably also kill Yue if Azula asked her to—but at least she might be quick about it, Yue thought. At least she probably would not be cruel.

  


* * *

  


There were a thousand things to do before the Fire Navy ship Father had stolen could be launched again, and Katara tried to make sure she ended up doing several hundred of them, because that meant she could put off doing the one that really mattered.

She'd slept—slept like a _rock_ , slept like she hadn't quite managed to sleep since they'd left Kanjusuk. It wasn't like they were safe here, obviously, but there was still some part of her bone-certain that with Father around nothing truly bad could happen; so she'd slept, and it had felt _amazing_. And now everything seemed a lot more—well, no, not possible, exactly. But maybe less _im_ possible.

And with her mind a little clearer, and the fear and the frustration and the helpless anger all a little further away, it was a lot easier to admit that Toph and Sokka and Suki were right. It was just that Katara didn't want to _say_ so, because—

—because—

"You're making the face again," Aang observed, from halfway through the wall of the ship.

Katara sighed and set down the coil of rope she'd been moving. The way Aang could float through things was really useful, but also really annoying: there was nowhere you could turn to face, not a wall or a closed door or even the side of a mountain, where Aang couldn't look you in the eye if he really wanted to.

"The Prince Zuko face," Aang clarified, and then narrowed his eyes assessingly, holding out his arms so he could frame Katara's expression with blazing blue fingers. "It's—it's kind of like a grimace, but sort of extra disgusted, with your mouth all twisted around. Like you ate a moldy sea prune. But also a little bit guilty, because—"

"I _know_ ," Katara said, and she couldn't even say it very sharply, because she _did_ know. "I know he could be useful, I know it would be stupid not to let him help us. Even if all he does is get us to the—dungeon, or wherever it is his sister's taking Yue. I just—"

— _don't **want** to. I don't want to travel with him, I don't want to talk to him or eat with him or—or **look** at him_ —

Aang lowered his hands and looked at her for a moment, and then one side of his glimmering mouth started to curl up. "Yeah," he said, agreeing, "I get it," and then he glanced around thoughtfully. "You think maybe those crates should be over on this side of the hold instead of on that side?"

Katara grinned at him, grateful, and then made a show of looking for herself. "Yeah, I do," she said, and then paused. "Although maybe I shouldn't let the person who doesn't have to do any of the lifting decide—"

"Hey!"

  


*

  


Of course, even with Aang's help, Katara couldn't keep herself busy forever. There were only so many tasks that could be invented—and when she got to the point where she was considering moving the crates _back_ to the side of the hold they'd come from, she knew she had to stop. Besides, doing all this just to avoid dealing with Prince Zuko—in its own way, it made him important. It was like she was letting him tell her what to do; and that was the absolute last thing she wanted.

He was still on shore somewhere, Katara knew. He hadn't set foot on the ship all morning, and whether he was trying to silently acknowledge that his presence on board wasn't his decision, or it was just that he was looking forward to joining them exactly as much as she was looking forward to it—whatever the reason, she was grateful for it.

When she finally reached the ship's ramp, it was like they'd all been waiting for her. Of course the messengers from Ba Sing Se were already gone, but almost everybody else was there, either inside on the main deck or standing on the shore. Father was next to Toph, discussing—how best to launch the ship, Katara thought, judging by the snatches of words she could hear and the way Toph was gesturing to the shoreline. Sokka and Suki were holding hands, speaking together in low murmurs and looking out at the ship, or possibly across the water. And Prince Zuko—

Katara would have expected him to be alone, but he wasn't. Cousin Ukara was saying something to him, looking at him dourly—or at least she looked dour, unimpressed, unless you knew her well enough to see the amusement hiding in the slant of her mouth. She clapped Prince Zuko on the shoulder, firmly enough to make him stagger a little, and then stepped away.

And then it was as though they all noticed Katara at once, except it wasn't quite _at once_ : Toph was first, of course, not even needing her eyes to tell that Katara was coming, and she broke off mid-sentence and turned an ear toward Katara; and then Father looked to see why she'd done it, and the movement of his head caught Sokka's attention, and so on, until after a moment they were all looking, and had all gone quiet.

"Come on," Aang said gently, drifting down at her side like he wanted to take her hand. "You can do this. It's just like everything else you've done that you didn't want to do," he added, grinning, and then the grin eased down into a small smile. "It's to help people."

Katara didn't nod at him, didn't reply—Prince Zuko didn't know about him yet, after all, and it was better that way. But she took a deep breath in, slow, and then let it out, and then she walked to the corner of the ship's ramp that was closest to Zuko.

She just stared at him for a moment; and at first he looked right back at her, jaw clenched, but then he lowered his eyes. She had her friends, her family, at her back. He was alone, and he knew it.

"Your sister's going to take Yue back to the Fire Nation."

"Yes," he said.

"And—and you know where they're going."

"Yes."

"And your uncle will be imprisoned there, too."

"Yes," he agreed, very low.

Katara looked away from him and made herself drag in another long breath. Her hands were balled up at her sides, and she couldn't convince herself to relax them, but—but she wasn't going to hit him. She _wasn't_. They needed him: needed him to get through the Fire Nation without getting arrested or executed, needed him to find Yue.

_It's to help people._

"Okay," she made herself say. "All right."

  


***

  


Zuko's head snapped up—he could not stop it, though he had been doing his best to be deferent, to keep from making the Avatar angry.

It didn't seem to have worked, for she was glaring at him fiercely; but it also didn't seem to be stopping her from, impossibly, saying it again: "All right."

Zuko blinked.

The Avatar scowled at him a moment longer and then raised her fist, but it was only so she could stab a finger accusingly into his face. "But I _don't_ like you," she snapped—as though Zuko had been in any danger of believing otherwise!—"and I _don't_ trust you, and if you do anything I don't like I'm going to throw you overboard."

She evidently did not require him to actually agree to these terms, as before he could so much as open his mouth, she had already turned around and begun to stride back up the ramp toward the ship.

He stood there and stared after her for a moment, and then one of the other girls caught his eye—Suki, he reminded himself. Suki. And he must use her name, because if he didn't then it was all too likely the Avatar _would_ kill him and dump his body in the sea. Suki didn't say anything, but she did raise her eyebrows at him; and he recalled their conversation from the day before and nodded at her, lifting his hands with deliberate obviousness to touch the hilts of the borrowed swords belted to his waist. She nodded back coolly, and then went without another glance to follow the Avatar.

The boy, the Avatar's brother, was the next to pass Zuko, and he also paused. "So I argued for you the other day," he said, "and I meant it, okay, because I think we need you. But between you and me? Losing Yue and getting you was _not_ a fair trade, and as far as I'm concerned, once we've got her back I'll _help_ Katara throw you overboard."

Zuko hesitated—how was he intended to reply to such a thing?—and then simply allowed himself to nod again.

"Awesome," the boy said, and smacked him on the shoulder, the impact too hard and the smile on the boy's face too false to be any sort of friendly. "Good talk, buddy."

The other girl, the short one, stepped toward him next; and there was something about the way she tilted her head that struck Zuko as familiar, though he couldn't imagine where he might have seen her before. "I was going to say something mean, too," she said to him in a confiding tone, "but I think they pretty much have that covered. So, hey," she added, and punched him in the arm. "Welcome to the team. Until we kick you off it again, at least."

She followed the Avatar's brother up into the ship, and Zuko watched her go and then swallowed. The Avatar's father still stood there, and the other Water Tribe warrior, the woman, was beside him. There were two more on the ramp, and—and a dozen more inside, perhaps, each with at least as much reason to kill him as to help him, which meant going into that ship of his own free will was—was _idiocy_ , sheer stupidity—

But—

But Ba Sing Se, Zuko thought, was the worst thing that had ever happened to Uncle; and he had walked right back into that city, without hesitating, because he'd thought he might save Zuko's life by it. Surely Zuko could find it in himself to give at least as much in return.

So Zuko took a deep breath, carefully lifted his hands away from the hilts of his swords, and followed where the Avatar led.

  


* * *

  


Mizan peered out across the water, and then down again at Lieutenant Cho's maps.

"The eastern base is our primary concern," he was saying, "and yet of course it seems foolish to capture it and leave the rest, and we cannot take the central base without at least one of the others—" and it sounded so excessive, even in Cho's brisk voice, but damned if he wasn't _right_.

The Fire Nation might have struggled to capture the shores of Chameleon Bay, but had had no difficulty whatsoever establishing naval bases on the islands in the middle. Trying to hold the mouth of the Tai San against a Fire Nation fleet posed a difficult enough task even without a line of Fire Nation military installations at your back—and, of course, the ships from Cheolla would be the closest to them, so it was little wonder that the king and queen were insisting they be dealt with.

And the easternmost was also the northernmost, and therefore posed the most obvious threat to an Earth fleet to the islands' north. But leaving the central and western bases intact while taking the easternmost was simply _asking_ for supply lines to be disrupted. And if you took two successfully—why leave the third buzzing along at your shoulder like a wasp fly? Why not capture the bay entirely and be done with it? At that point it began to seem a little foolish _not_ to settle in and do the thing properly.

Besides, if the ships from Cheolla and the pirates could not manage to work together long enough to capture a few small naval bases, surely it was better to know it _before_ an admiral brought half the navy down upon their heads.

But—of course—Tan Khai had not yet encountered an idea she could not scoff at. "Surely we will be lucky beyond reckoning to take even one of them," she bit out, "given that _your_ glorious navy has never managed it—"

"We have never had the benefit of a former Fire Nation officer's insight," Cho said, without heat.

"Oh, yes," Tan Khai said, throwing up her hands. "I myself have always loved pinning my hopes for success on a madwoman! It makes everything so much more exciting."

"It worked for you at Dou Ying," Mizan observed mildly, and she was already turning to give Tan Khai one of her more annoying smiles when the lookout shouted behind them.

"To stern!" was the loudest cry, though there were others a moment later from the ships nearest—"To port!" "The bow!"—and for a moment Mizan feared that perhaps they had underestimated the commanders of those island bases. But when a shining pale _thing_ flew up over the side and hooked itself securely around the rail, it was not a standard Fire Navy grappling hook.

In point of fact, Mizan was not sure what it was. She took a step nearer, and as though in answer, two more of the things hurtled up to either side of the first—and cord trailed beneath them, so they _were_ grappling hooks, of a sort. They were narrow, white, with subtly varying lines and angles: bone, Mizan thought, and even as she thought it the first blue-and-white figure burst into view and leapt neatly over the rail.

It was a woman, and a woman with a long sharp spear, at that, which she was holding at the ready. But for all that she looked entirely prepared to use it, she made no move to shove it through Mizan's chest; so Mizan returned the favor and held still.

The woman blinked and then narrowed her eyes—at Mizan, in her brown, and then at Tan Khai and Lieutenant Cho in their green. Tan Khai had drawn her sword, but then stayed her hand; uncharacteristic, Mizan would be tempted to say, except of course Tan Khai was Earth Kingdom. _Water Tribe_ meant _friendly_ , to her.

"Interesting," the woman said, and, with an almost experimental air, reached out with the spear to poke Mizan's shoulder with the point. Tan Khai took a step forward and knocked it away with her blade—and the woman looked at her assessingly and then lowered the spear's haft to the deck. "Not what we were expecting," she murmured.

One of her fellows had made it up, another woman, and she tipped herself onto the deck with a solid thud of boots. "I dare say they were not expecting us either," she said, brushing off her hands, and then with casual ease walked past Mizan to look down interestedly at the maps.

"No," Mizan agreed, very dry; and the second woman glanced up at her, amused, and then back over her shoulder at the first.

"Targeting the bases, I think," she said.

The first woman grinned to hear it, all teeth. "Well," she said, sounding pleased, and tilted her head. "Perhaps you would not mind a bit of—extra help?"

  


* * *

  


With no other standing orders issued for the rest of the crew, the quartermasters had all the extra hands they could possibly ask for, and their reports were stacking up rapidly by mid-afternoon. And it wasn't that the results were especially dismal—considering the number of ships and the sizes of their holds, the numbers were about as good as Yin could have wished. They were just so very _finite_.

"We'll do all right for a little while," she told Kishen, trying to speak as a sub-admiral ought: calmly, resolutely. "It is only—" and there, there was the doubt, which she should not let him hear but could not seem to keep caged.

"Sir?" he prompted.

"It is only—I see no end to it," she admitted, and even she could hear how tired she sounded. "If we had a destination, there would be something to work out, calculations to be made for how to best make it last. But as it is, there is nowhere for us to _go_. That is what will kill us. We cannot return to any area controlled by the Fire Nation, but what Earth Kingdom would ever agree to shelter us? Sooner than we would like, we will need food, water, coal for the ships—but is there anyone left in the world who would give these things to us?" She shook her head. "I was—I was grateful, when the Serpent's Pass opened for us; but perhaps it would have been better after all if—"

"Sir," Kishen said, more sharply than was his habit. "Sir, I—I believe there is a place."

Yin looked at him, skeptical. She had not mentioned the Water Tribes because it was so ludicrous an idea as to be laughable; there were some Earth Kingdoms that had not felt the worst of what the Fire Nation had to offer, and even they would not look kindly on a Fire Nation fleet begging favors from them. The Water Tribes—the Water Tribes would drag them off their ships and drown them one by one, barehanded. And that was only if they even lasted long enough to reach either one. And the islands of the Air Nomads were empty; there would be water, fruit, something to hunt, and perhaps that was the best option left after all, even if they would not be able to sail away from them again without coal—

But Kishen was looking back at her with something on his face that was like determination and apprehension at once, something that made her suddenly certain that was not the suggestion he had in mind. "Sir," he said again, more quietly. "There's something I need to tell you."

  


*

  


Whatever it was, the telling of it apparently could not take place on the main deck. Yin led him back amidships to the bridge, and it was only once they were inside, with the navigator and chief quartermaster waved out and the hatch shut, that Kishen finally spoke further.

When he did, he did not begin where Yin might have expected. They seated themselves at the table in the bridge, and Kishen shifted his weight, clenched and unclenched his hands, and then looked at her at last. "I told you once that I'd never seen the mainland," he said after a moment, "and that was true."

"Your great-great-grandparents," Yin said, "they were colonists. I remember. But what does this—"

"Sir," Kishen said. "Please." He was not so tense now that they were alone, with the hatch closed securely behind them, and seated comfortably; but his shoulders were still too high, knotted tight beneath his armor, and the look on his face—

Yin closed her mouth.

"By the time my grandparents were born," Kishen said, "the front had moved back and forth so many times—they'd stopped moving with it. The village was small, tucked away in the hills; hardly anyone bothered with it—"

"There are patrols guarding the colonies," Yin said. "There have been since Fire Lord Sozin established the first."

Kishen was silent for a moment. "It wasn't a colony," he said at last, quiet. "My great-grandparents fled an attack in the wrong—or maybe the right—direction. They probably would have been turned away, but my great-grandmother was about to have my grandfather, and someone—" He bit his lip, shrugged one shoulder. "Someone was kind. My grandparents grew up in that village together—"

Yin blinked. "You— _all_ your great-grandparents ran the same direction?" she said, and then went still.

"No," Kishen said anyway, even though he had to be able to tell that she'd guessed. "Sir—"

"What are you trying to tell me?" Yin said slowly.

Kishen drew a long, deep breath, and then let it out in a rush and said, "I'm trying to tell you—I'm trying to tell you that two of my aunts and three of my uncles are Earthbenders. Half of my cousins have green eyes. I wanted them—I wanted them safe, I wanted them alive. I knew I had to do something, and I _could_. My uncle, Chao, he—he doesn't look like me. He came with me to the palace in Zhanlo so they wouldn't crush me the moment I walked up to the gate, and I—"

Yin stood abruptly, so quickly her chair toppled over behind her—she couldn't walk out, couldn't pretend she hadn't heard it, but she _wanted_ to, and standing up, turning away, was the closest she could get.

Kishen fell silent. There was light coming into the bridge this late in the day, pouring in gold-orange through the windows, and dust was drifting through it, still swirling away from Yin's sudden motion; Yin watched it move, listened to herself breathe, and then she closed her eyes and lowered her head and set her fists against the glass in front of her.

Forget the part where he was a traitor, the part where he had lied about everything, the part that made her never want to look at him again. What was left? It made sense, she thought distantly. It made a _lot_ of sense. It had always been too easy, hadn't it? She had let it be easy. She had always liked it too much, that feeling of being understood, that feeling of not being alone—so much she had been willing to sit back and be grateful for it, had let it go again and again instead of pressing him for his true reasons. But now it all fit: the way he'd let her get away with all the things she'd done, the way he'd helped her, the way he'd watched her kill their commanding officer and never said a word—because he worked for an Earth kingdom, because there was nothing he wanted more than to sit back and watch Fire Nation officers stab each other in the back. She almost laughed, except there was nothing she wanted to do less than laugh at that moment.

So he worked for an Earth queen, and had all along—but what was the purpose in saying so? He had told her now for a reason, and the last thing she had said to him before he had asked her to come in here had been—

"You would be well within your rights to have me thrown over the side," Kishen said behind her, very low. "But for the sake of the fleet, sir, please—please consider it."

For the sake of the fleet. Yin pressed her knuckles harder against the cool glass, screwed her eyes shut tighter. There was no safe harbor in the world for the fleet, but there might be one for Kishen—if, of course, he had not worked this out with the queen of Jansung beforehand, if the goal of his service had not been to deliver Fire Nation ships to her doorstep—

But what other choice was there? What port would Yin order her ships to sail to, if she turned around now and told Kishen she did not believe him, if she did indeed throw him over the side and leave him to drown?

"Very well," she said to the glass, and then she made herself turn and face him, because there was nothing else to be done. "I will consider it, and one way or another there will be new orders in the morning. Dismissed, Lieutenant."

"Sir—"

"Yes, Lieutenant?" Yin said. She looked at him calmly, inquiringly; the expression felt as false and stiff as a mask, but she could muster nothing better. She had been such a _fool_.

Kishen's gaze flicked back and forth across her face, and he drew in a slow breath, mouth flat with resignation. He straightened, squared his shoulders and his feet, and bowed, drawing his hands together in front of him: one flat, one a fist, a salute more perfect than any he had given her in months. "Nothing, sir," he said, eyes on the floor.

"Dismissed, Lieutenant," Yin said.


	2. New Steps

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't apologize for the wait anywhere NEAR enough to make up for it, so I won't try. /o\ And I can't claim this chapter will make up for the wait either, but I am at least pleased with how it's (FINALLY) turned out! So if nothing else I hope it's not too big a disappointment. ;D

  


  


It was a considerable distance from the walls of Ba Sing Se to the western coast. But Princess Azula's tank ate away at it steadily. In the strictest terms, it was not an uncomfortable journey. Yue had slept worse places, and the low measured grinding of the tank's motion was, in some ways, not unlike the sound of the sea.

But a lack of discomfort could not be said to equal comfort—not in Princess Azula's presence.

Her sharp eyes seemed to be everywhere at once, watching, assessing, disdaining; she never missed any opportunity given to her to mock her uncle cruelly for his failures, his losses, and as best Yue could tell it was hardly even done out of anger. It was not that Princess Azula had a temper and failed to leash it. It was simply that she—that she felt General Iroh ought not to be allowed to forget those things or to move beyond them, perhaps; or that she wished, clear-eyed, to hurt him, and knew how best to accomplish it. Or both, Yue supposed.

She could not do the same thing to Yue with any real effectiveness. She did not know Yue as she knew her uncle, and could not cause her true pain. Expressing disdain for Yue's bending ability, asking her what exactly she thought she was doing standing up and fighting for the Avatar, did not seem to occur to her as a point to attack—and why would it? Her father had no doubt _insisted_ she be trained in bending, had _sent_ her to track down and defeat her brother and her uncle.

She was everything Master Pakku might well have envisioned when he'd refused to train the Avatar. And if the Avatar had been Princess Azula, he might have been right, though still for the wrong reasons—but, oh, Yue would almost have loved to have seen that argument. The _look_ Princess Azula would have given him—!

But there were still easy targets: the Water Tribes, the fate so nearly inflicted on one and soon to be inflicted on the other, how Yue's friends and family would suffer.

Yue had begun to think that unkindness was a sort of habit, to the princess, and that she knew no other way to be—and then, like opening a door that had been closed, Azula would smile at Mai, would say something flat and droll to Samnang; would close her eyes as Ty Lee carefully brushed her hair, and for a moment lose all but the barest echo of the sharp fierce tension that usually animated her face.

But those moments were rare, and often interrupted—by Azula herself, more times than not. This time, Yue could not even guess what it was that made her stop and look away from Mai.

"Excellent," she murmured, and stood. "We are nearly there," and only then did Yue realize that the tank had begun to slow.

  


*

  


It was enough to make her think for a moment that she had gone mad or lost time—that somehow many more days had passed within the rumbling box of the tank's insides than she had understood. But Azula opened the outer hatch and shoved them out, and there was no port, no harbor, no ocean. They had not yet reached the coast after all.

There was only the river. The Lei, wasn't it? The one that flowed north from the Yellow Seas.

Their machine had come to a stop upon the eastern bank; it was late morning, the sun bright but the air crisp with lingering winter, and the sound of the water flowing past them was like music after nothing but mechanical clanking for so long.

Yue only had a moment to breathe it all in before Azula shoved her closer to where the bank dropped away. "Go on, princess," Azula said, sharp, mocking, and then tilted her chin toward the river. "Freeze it."

Yue blinked, and then looked at Azula, at General Iroh. What was the purpose—?

"Freeze it," Azula repeated. "Make the ice wide enough for the tank to cross."

Of course, some part of Yue thought distantly. Of course: why bother to find a bridge? What was the point, when you could as easily use your prisoner for it? It was so much more efficient to cross at the princess's convenience, and at the same time for her to turn Yue into nothing more than a tool, to force Yue to acknowledge her will and bend to it—

The rest of her, she was surprised to discover, had only one thing to say.

"No."

"Oh, how charming: a show of defiance." Azula leaned in and smiled, looking girlishly pleased. "Usually," she added, tone almost confiding, "I really would indulge you—but we both have places to be. Freeze it," she said again, and then almost in a single motion she took General Iroh by the arm with one hand and drew a knife from her waist with the other.

No one else moved. Ty Lee and Mai, behind Azula, were silent; Mai looked bored. Yue wondered whether in fact she was—whether Azula had done this, or something like this, so many times that Mai _could_ be bored with it.

Yue swallowed. Azula was bending a little bit, too; almost theatrically, just enough for a thin curl of smoke to begin wending its way up from General Iroh's sleeve where Azula's hand was touching it. Nicely threatening, Yue thought. But unnecessary. She did not need to be convinced. She had no doubt that Azula was entirely capable of shoving that blade into her uncle's throat.

She looked at the river, and back at Azula; and then, belatedly, at General Iroh. He hadn't made any attempt to defend himself, though surely he could have. He was simply standing there, patient, calm. Perhaps he only wanted to avoid harming his niece. But his life was at least partly in Yue's hands, and whatever the reason, he was allowing it to remain there. Trusting her with it—and so perhaps she _could_ trust him in return.

But that didn't matter right now. What mattered right now was the knife, and Azula, and the river.

Yue could not bring herself to say it. She couldn't even bear to nod an acknowledgment. But she drew in a breath and then lifted her hands, and she could see how Azula's face changed, something that was almost glee spreading across it.

She didn't have to freeze the river solid. The ice only needed to be thick enough to bear the tank's weight for a moment, wide enough to be braced against the banks so the water beneath would not sweep it away.

"Oh, well done, princess," Azula said warmly—as though Yue were a student she had the right to be proud of. The idea made Yue feel almost sick; and she closed her eyes and lowered her hands and listened to the sound of the river.

  


*

  


It took only a moment for the tank to grind back into motion, once they were all inside again, but by now Yue had the trick of walking inside the thing while it was moving. She returned to her place, sat—and, if nothing else, she could be grateful Azula hadn't bothered to keep them chained—and then turned and found Azula a half-step away.

"Yes?" Yue said, as chilly as she could with her heart thumping in surprise.

"You're beginning to understand, I hope," Azula told her in a conversational tone. "My will is my father's will, is my nation's will, and you serve it—even now, even as you still insist you'll fight us." Her eyes narrowed. "Something in you knows we are your rightful masters. It's only a matter of time before you acknowledge it."

"If it pleases you to think so," Yue said, but it was difficult not to shiver. Azula sounded so _certain_ —

"You are powerless," Azula murmured, and her gaze on Yue's face was cool, assessing. "It would be best if you didn't forget that."

"You are the one who forgets," General Iroh said.

Azula went still. She was still facing Yue, but her gaze had moved, slid sideways, and all her attention had shifted, the relentless pressure of it suddenly lifting away from Yue entirely.

She said nothing, though; and so General Iroh was given the chance to repeat, gentle, "You are the one who forgets. It was not you who froze the water, my niece."

"Be silent," Princess Azula said, very quietly. "You're a coward and a traitor. You've turned away from your family and your nation and no longer belong to either, and I won't be addressed in that manner by you."

"You took her to the river because she had power you did not," General Iroh said. "And you took me to the river because otherwise she would not have used it. She would perhaps have died before doing as you asked of her, and you knew it.

"Your power depends on ours. As your father's depends on yours, and on the power of every other person who follows him; which means it does not belong to him at all. It is a gift, lent—it is dependence. And," and General Iroh's voice grew heavy, some weight of context Yue did not understand, "dependence is weakness. Isn't it, my—"

Azula's expression had grown steadily more thunderous, and now, belated, the lightning came: something sharp and fierce and ugly flashed across her face. She turned in a rush and spat, "Do _not_ call me that," and then crossed the tank's bay in four long strides and struck General Iroh so hard his head hit the side of the tank.

Yue flinched at the sound it made, and out of the corner of her eye she saw Ty Lee do the same. Some part of Yue was almost sorry that Samnang was still up front in the navigation room where Azula had left him, that Mai had gone to join him; she would have liked to see what they did, too.

"You have power over _nothing_. You're my prisoner, and the only reason you aren't dead is because if I kill you here only four people will see it." Azula's lip curled into a sneer. "The Dragon of the West deserves better. _Father_ deserves better—he deserves to be able to watch your last breath leave you and smile."

The blow had left General Iroh facing the length of seat beside him, and he had not looked up; but now he did. His lip was bleeding, Yue saw, but he did not look angry or afraid, or even pained. He looked sad.

"You still do not understand," he murmured. "Know that I do not hold it against you—that I never will. Oh, Azula," he added, very low. "I am so sorry."

"For the wrong things," Azula said sharply, "as always," and then she turned on her heel and stalked away.

  


* * *

  


It had been a very, very strange week.

The Lin Wei was an old, deep river, certainly deep enough to allow a small scouting vessel like this one to travel its length. Its banks were still mostly held by Earth forces from one kingdom or another, and after the first time the Avatar had had to defend them from boulders hurled by an Earth Kingdom fort, they had strung lengths of blue and green cloth along the ship's rails and sides. False colors—or true, depending on how you looked at it; and thinking that made Zuko uncomfortably aware of his own green shirts and trousers, as he had never been in Ba Sing Se. There, he hadn't thought of it as anything but a deception. Now—

Now he was helping the Avatar. The Avatar, who hated him and took no pains to hide it, and that was the strangest part of all.

Zuko hadn't had enough time in Ba Sing Se to grow used to—to being liked, he supposed, if that was what it had been; Wan Liu, Qingying, had as good as said so aloud, and Zuko had not disagreed with either of them at the time. He was much more familiar with being _dis_ liked, and he'd never previously had the opportunity to discover that there were ways to be disliked other than by Azula. He'd assumed all dislike was probably about the same.

He'd been wrong.

Azula's dislike had been capricious, unleashed at whim. Some days she had been almost pleasant, insults delivered teasingly, no one shoved in any fountains and no one's brand-new clothes burned; and other days she had been icy, cruel, had hurt him and known it and laughed. Zuko had never known which sort of day it would be in advance, and had never been able to affect the course of things once it had begun.

Father had been different, granted, but that was—Zuko had _failed_ him. His ire had been earned, and Zuko had bowed low in the face of it and sworn to do better.

For all the good it had done him.

But the Avatar and her friends—Zuko was struggling with that. Cruelty for cruelty's own sake, he'd learned how to bear; and Father's anger and disappointment had been understandable: Zuko, too, wished he were sharper, quicker, stronger, more able.

But the Avatar and her friends disliked Zuko because of the things he'd _succeeded_ at. He had successfully assaulted Suki's village, after all, even if he had not captured the Avatar by it; and he had successfully tracked the Avatar all the way to the north, even if he hadn't had the chance to drag her senseless body away from the spirit pool. There was Pohuai—but they still didn't know that had been him, and probably wouldn't believe that it had been if he tried to tell them so now.

It had never been difficult to apologize to Father. He and Zuko had fully agreed on where the fault lay. And to acknowledge the shame of error was an entirely different thing from agreeing that what he had done—what he had _meant_ to do, clear-eyed and with intent—had been somehow ... wrong anyway. Not because he'd still failed at it in the end, not because the Avatar thought he should have done it more skillfully or simply wanted to make him feel small. Because she thought he had been wrong to do it at all, and hated him for trying.

Zuko's grip tightened on the rail in front of him. Whether what he did was right wasn't a question that had crossed his mind much while he'd actually been doing it—Father had wished it, and so Zuko had needed to do it in order to be restored to his place, and right and wrong had been irrelevant, even nonsensical, next to those truths. Uncle had tried to _make_ it cross his mind, he could see that now, but had mostly failed. But given that he was now planning to break into a prison alongside the Avatar for Uncle's sake, even though that was not at all what Father would want—

It still tripped him up each time he thought that and didn't spontaneously catch fire. But he was slowly starting to get used to it, and to that end he thought it again, deliberately: he was doing something Father did not want. Azula was doing what Father wanted, and Zuko was not, and—and Father couldn't do anything about it. Father couldn't stop him, couldn't shame him; Father didn't even _know_ yet. Father was far away and had no idea and couldn't tell Zuko he was wrong or make him change his mind. And even if he _had_ known, and disdained Zuko for it—Uncle wouldn't. Uncle would be glad.

Did that matter more? Should it? Zuko squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his teeth. How could anyone ever tell? How did anyone make order out of this confusion?

And yet it had to be possible, didn't it? Because in his own way there was no one more orderly than Uncle—who was always so calm and so certain, who never rushed or misspoke. And he had stopped doing as Father willed years ago. He had followed Zuko into exile when he had a thousand reasons not to, because—

Because, perhaps, he'd thought it was right.

  


*

  


So Zuko stared out at the riverbank and considered. What Father wanted had sometimes been the right thing to do, Zuko felt sure, but perhaps sometimes it hadn't been; and without Father's will as a guideline, there had to be some other way to decide. The smartest thing to do could also be the right thing to do, but sometimes that wasn't it either—he himself had thought Wan Liu an idiot for letting him live with her family, but it was quite possibly the only reason he and Uncle were still alive, and—and he couldn't bring himself to call her _wrong_ for that.

Maybe it would become a little clearer if he better understood what it was that had even happened in the catacombs: why the Avatar had helped him get out, and what she had lost by doing it.

Except she would never tell him. Her brother might answer but probably wouldn't be truthful—would make a stupid joke and smile at Zuko, unforgiving, eyes hard. And Suki? Better not to ask anything of Suki.

Which left only one person to try.

  


*

  


The Bei Fong girl—Toph, Zuko reminded himself, he should probably try to call her Toph—liked to sit up at the prow of the ship. And "sit" was maybe a little generous: "sprawl" might be a more accurate word. It still felt revoltingly cold to Zuko, but Toph didn't seem to mind; she was sheltered a little from the wind by the way the prow reared up toward the sky, and it _was_ sunny. But the way she was lolling about still seemed excessive.

She propped herself up on one elbow as he came nearer, and then tilted her head up and said, "Yeah?"

She was looking a little past him, the sun streaming down into her face—he expected her to squint, and then remembered why she wasn't and grimaced at his own stupidity.

"What?" she prompted, not unkindly.

"There's—something I'd like to ask you," Zuko said cautiously.

He'd only thought that she was the least likely to ignore him or walk away without answering if he tried to talk to her; he was surprised when she smiled at him, even if it was just a little quirk of the mouth.

"Well, hey," she said. "As long as you're okay with maybe not liking the answer, knock yourself out."

"You don't seem to hate me very much," Zuko blurted out, and he felt his face heat—but at least Toph couldn't see it.

"What, like the rest of them?" Toph shrugged. "Well, they all mostly remember you as the guy who was trying really hard to make their lives really difficult," she said. "They told me about it, obviously, but that's not exactly the same as being there. And I—I mostly remember you from the tea shop."

Zuko blinked.

"You were that guy in the doorway," Toph elaborated. "That guy I bumped into on my way out, the afternoon I was having tea with your uncle. I knew there was something familiar about the way you felt, it just took me a while to figure out where from. I mean," she added confidingly, " _now_ I know I was having tea with the Fire Lord's brother and then almost knocked down the crown prince. But I didn't know it then.

"And you—" She shrugged again. "You bowed to me when I apologized to you, and you held the door for me after. Maybe you are awful; but maybe you aren't. Anyway, what did you want to ask me?"

She said it easily, conversationally. But Zuko felt oddly thrown, wrong-footed, and it took him a moment to answer. "The—the girl," he said, "Yue, that you left behind to help me."

Toph went still. And then after a moment she sat up—all the way, straight—and turned to face the far rail. "Yeah?" she said slowly.

"I—what was she like?"

Zuko knew a little already: he'd recognized her right away with that hair, he remembered fighting her in the north. She'd caught him coming to attack the Avatar and she'd beaten him. But she hadn't killed him, hadn't hurt him. Maybe it was because she'd been interrupted—but maybe not. He wasn't certain anymore. She hadn't seemed angry with him when they'd met again in the catacombs. She'd seemed—kind.

Toph didn't move, and for a long moment it was as though she hadn't heard him at all. But then at last she sighed and turned back toward him. "You know how Sokka likes to say we got the bad end of the deal, leaving her behind to help you?"

Zuko grimaced. "Yes."

"Well, she wouldn't have thought so," Toph said, matter-of-fact. "If she'd been there in the tea shop, if she'd heard the whole story from your uncle and everything—she'd have wanted us to help you, even if it meant she got left. That's what she was like."

Zuko stared down at his hands without seeing them. A Water Tribe princess; uncivilized, barbarian, beast, his mind supplied, but he took a breath and set that aside. Whatever else could be said about her or her people, there was a kind of honor in what she'd done, wasn't there? To be committed to a thing, to see it accomplished regardless of the cost to yourself because you had vowed that it would be. That was honor, and courage too; and Zuko had been stripped of both for a long time. If that was the standard he measured by— "So you did get the bad end of the deal," he allowed himself to say, quiet. Who would this girl tell? The Avatar hated him; Uncle was in prison; Wan Liu was on the other end of a river, the other side of a sea. And Father—

Father, in this moment, did not matter.

"She wouldn't have thought so," Toph said again. "She would have thought you were worth it." She nudged him with an elbow, and waited until he looked at her—he didn't know how she could even tell, but she could.

"I'm not," Zuko heard himself say. "I'm—I'm not."

Toph tilted her head. "Maybe you should try to be," she said.

So simple, and yet so incredibly unhelpful. Zuko huffed. "You sound like my uncle."

Toph grinned at him. "Sweet," she said. "Your uncle's awesome."

Zuko stared at her, baffled, and then nearly leapt out of his boots when a hand came down on his shoulder.

"Hey, Ukara," Toph said comfortably.

So Zuko was easier to sneak up on than a blind girl. Azula would have loved to see that.

"Toph," Ukara said, lowering her head in acknowledgment; and then she looked at Zuko and squeezed his shoulder, just a little, before she moved her hand away. "We are nearing the mouth of the river—we will be in Fire Nation waters by day's end, or perhaps tomorrow morning. Our colors need to be taken down. And," she added, eyeing them both up and down, "you need to change your clothes."

  


* * *

  


"Are you sure this is a good idea, sir?"

Yin turned her head. For once, it wasn't Kishen.

It probably wouldn't be again for quite a while.

"Oh, I'm fairly certain it's a bad idea, Commander. But it is our best option."

Yin allowed her tone to turn wry, but Nusha wasn't Arun; she did not smile. She did not look angry, either, or disdainful. She didn't look much of anything. As a rule, the woman seemed to have a damned opaque face.

Then again, "not angry" was about as generous a response as Yin could have hoped for. It was a mad idea, going to an Earth queen to ask for help—Yin thought so herself, and she had actual reason to believe it might work. Her commanders had only her word, her word and the vague string of logic she'd fed them: that they constituted a naval force any Earth kingdom should be grateful to have, that Jansung in particular might be persuaded to make use of them if Jindao were ever to be retaken, that Queen Yujun was known to employ soldiers and spies of Fire Nation ancestry already.

She'd nearly begun to laugh, trying to tell them that straight-faced with Kishen standing by the door behind her. She had managed to imply that this knowledge came from imperial intelligence forces; she hadn't looked to see how Kishen had reacted to the misdirection.

For the sake of the fleet. That was the most important thing. She was responsible for everyone who had followed her out of the South Yellow Sea, and this was not a good idea but was the best option.

The rest of it didn't matter.

Nusha was still watching her. "Unless there's something I'm missing," Yin said, raising an eyebrow.

"Implying that you don't know what you're doing would be disrespectful, sir," Nusha said evenly, "and I respect you very much. Even though you don't know what you're doing."

Yin snorted—she couldn't help it—and shook her head. "Well, I will try to make sure very few of us pay for it, if that is any comfort." Unlike the Tai San, the Lei was not held by Fire Nation forces; the river level was not controlled. Battleships could not sail it—at least not without help from Earth- or Waterbenders, which they would not have until after Yujun agreed to take them on.

If Yujun agreed to take them on. But Yin hadn't lied; _Kishen_ hadn't lied, not about this: there was nothing else to try. So she would try it, with a few sampans heading up the river, and if she failed the fleet would still be here.

"I will take them down the Lin Wei," Nusha said.

Yin looked at her.

"If you do not come back, sir," Nusha clarified, not unkindly. "I will take the rest of the sampans and we will go down the Lin Wei to the sea. And then south, I think, to the Air Temple there. West would be much more dangerous."

It should have been upsetting, Yin thought, listening to someone outline their plans in the event of her death. But Nusha said it so calmly, so steadily. And Yin had said it to herself just a moment ago—if she failed the fleet would still be here. _Someone_ needed to know what to do next.

"Agreed, Commander," Yin said quietly. "South will be safest," and then she looked down at her hands on the rail and let herself add, "Thank you."

"Of course, sir," Nusha said, equally quietly, and saluted before she stepped away.

  


*

  


Kishen might no longer come up to Yin on deck to speak casually; but that didn't mean it was possible to avoid him. He had been her second-in-command in every way that mattered. She'd assigned him additional duties—as admiral of the fleet, she'd also served nominally as captain of the flagship, but in practice some of that work had gone to him. And he did it well, always had. She had no excuse to take it back from him, or at least none she could give aloud. And in any case, Kishen would be coming with her—had to, if they were going to get anywhere near the queen. She couldn't strip him of responsibility and then hand-pick him to accompany her for a thing like this without provoking questions.

But she also couldn't quite manage to look happy to see him waiting for her outside the bridge.

"Sir," he said as she approached.

She wanted an excuse to ignore him, but he refused to give her one: he kept his gaze respectfully lowered, his hands at his chest in a salute, a model sailor in every respect.

Every respect except the part where he was an Earth Kingdom spy who'd been lying to her for months.

"Lieutenant," she said, and passed him for the hatch without looking at him.

He took this for the tacit permission it was, and followed her into the bridge. "You wish to depart tomorrow, sir?"

"Yes, Lieutenant."

"And—if I may ask, sir—who will you take with you?"

He said it so carefully; and perhaps it was only politeness, that he refrained from making assumptions by saying _who **else**_ —or perhaps he wanted to force her to say it, to wring out an acknowledgment that she needed him.

She couldn't tell anymore. And she couldn't stop second-guessing herself, either: if she leaned toward the former, was it because it was true or because some small stupid part of her still thought too kindly of him? If she leaned toward the latter, was it because it was more likely or because she was so angry she could hardly speak to him?

She closed her eyes and flattened her hands against the table in front of her, and managed to make it come out credibly level: "Besides you, Lieutenant? I do not think it can be any of our squadron or division commanders. If we fail to return, it's best that the fleet's command structure remain as intact as possible." She thought for a moment, running through names in her mind, and then added, "Feizin, perhaps. And Bai Wen. Four sampans is enough, I think—too few and accident could sink us all, but too many and we may appear less than sincere."

"Agreed, sir," Kishen said quietly.

He'd begun leaving without waiting to be dismissed—another thing she couldn't make up her mind about, grateful for it on the days when she didn't want to look at him and resentful of it on the days when everything he did felt presumptuous. But apparently she wouldn't get to find out which category today belonged to: he wasn't moving.

"Is there something else, Lieutenant?" Level, level, level. She was a commander talking to a subordinate, and that was all.

"No, sir," he said, and then, oddly gentle, "but I wish there were."

And at that she had to turn, had to look. He was still keeping his eyes trained on the floor, but that didn't mean he couldn't tell she'd moved; and he waited a moment afterward and then spoke again.

"I wish I could apologize to you, sir. But I find I can't. I don't regret it."

She let her voice get wry, light—as though she were amused. As though it didn't bother her. "Is that so?"

"Yes, sir," he said, unwavering. "If I'd told you the truth before you ever came to me at the gate—you'd have turned me in, sir, and then I wouldn't have been here. If I'd told you the truth too soon after, you'd still have done the same; too long after, and you'd still have felt your trust had been breached. You might have transferred me away, demoted me—given me a chance to die with honor, if you were generous, and I might well have taken it.

"And if I'd never had to lie at all, if I'd always been who you thought I was, then I—I couldn't have helped you, sir. I couldn't have helped you then, and I couldn't help you now. We'd be trapped here and I wouldn't be able to do anything about it; and I can't be sorry it's not like that. I'd rather you had a way to survive this and never trusted me again than the other way around, sir, and if I had to do it over I'd do it the same way."

He fell silent after, still not meeting her eyes; and she looked at him and thought distantly that she almost did understand. Somewhere far away from herself, she could see what he meant, could believe that he meant it—could even empathize. There was no one standing in this bridge right now who hadn't lied to a superior officer repeatedly to further their own aims, after all.

But the anger and the hurt were much closer by, easier to reach, and in the end when she opened her mouth what came out was, "Then I suppose you are right, Lieutenant: there is nothing else to discuss."

"Of course, sir," Kishen said, and saluted, and then turned neatly on his heel and went out.

  


* * *

  


It felt like it should have taken a lot longer to get anywhere near the Fire Nation, even the easternmost islands—like how far away it was, how hard it was to get to, was supposed to match how strange it was to think about being there. And how utterly wrong it was about everything, how—how _bad_ it was.

Which, going by that, Katara thought, it should have been on the other side of the world. But the map said it all: the nearest Fire Nation island wasn't much further from the end of the Lin Wei than Shinsotsu was from Omashu. Hardly any distance, really, compared to how far they'd gone already.

And yet still somehow further than Katara wanted to go.

It had gotten warmer as they crossed the sea, warmer and muggier, and when Mikama finally spotted the island, it was through a soft gray haze of rain.

Katara tried to listen to the patter of it against the deck, the hull, instead of paying too much attention to what she was doing: she'd stayed belowdecks rather than change her clothes while they passed Jindao and the blockade, but she couldn't avoid it any longer. Jindao was where they'd bought their Fire Nation clothes—she'd kept hers stuffed into the bottom of her pack where she could ignore them, where she didn't have to look at them. They were from before anything had really gone wrong, and it had seemed like a good idea to have them, then. But now, after the plaza, after Zhao, after Ba Sing Se—putting them on made her skin crawl.

But she had to do it anyway. So she closed her eyes and listened to the rain and tried not to think about it.

She'd just about figured out how to get the skirt tucked in over the pants when Sokka found her. "There you are," he said, and then paused, tilting his head. "Man, your hair looks so weird like that."

 _ **All** of me looks weird like this_ , Katara wanted to say, except dwelling on it wasn't going to help. Finding Yue probably wouldn't be easy. Who knew how long they were going to be stuck in the Fire Nation? Katara had to get used to this—to looking like this, to having people see her and think she was ... well, probably not true Fire Nation. A colonial, more likely. Which was better anyway, since the clothes were from the colonies in the first place.

"Well, your face looks weird all the time," she said instead, prim, and Sokka grinned.

He looked weird, too, in red—but he hadn't had to change his hair as much, pulling it back in a Fire Nation knot instead of the usual leather tie. And his expressions were the same; the slouchy way he liked to stand, the easy line of his shoulders, the faint pale scarring that still rippled over his arm where he'd been burned. It made her feel better to look at him, seeing all the ways he was still the same.

After all, they were just clothes.

"Yeah, yeah, same to you," Sokka was saying, shaking his head, and then he paused and looked away, scratching at the back of his neck. "So, listen, I get that you mostly want to do this for Yue—which is great, I'm totally on board for that. And on the one hand we should probably have a plan in case there _is_ a Day of Black Sun, even if there's also a chance the—" He waved a hand. "—celestial sky dragon or whatever wandered off after the dragons got wiped out. But on the other hand we still have a month or two, so I'm sure we can figure that out."

"But," Katara prompted, when he paused again.

"But—" He bit his lip, and then sighed and said it, all in a rush, like that would stop her from disagreeing: "But you aren't ever going to get a better chance to find a Firebender—"

As if there were anything she wanted to think about less than that.

"I'm _not_ going to ask Zuko—"

"No, hey," Sokka said, raising his hands, "that's fine. I remember those Earthbenders in the city, I get that you want to find the right person. I—also remember that you didn't like Toph all that much to start with either," he added, and then glanced at her face and said quickly, "But I'm sure what's happening here is totally different! Anyway, the point is—you _are_ going to need a teacher."

Katara looked away. He wasn't wrong—Roku had said she needed to master all the elements before the comet came, and he hadn't thrown in anything like "unless you really, really don't want to". She couldn't just skip fire, or ignore it. She had to at least try to figure out how to bend it.

Even if she really, really didn't want to.

"We're not just going for Yue," she offered, halfhearted. "If General Iroh is still with her, then maybe—maybe he can do it." It wouldn't be so bad with him, would it? He'd done as many awful things as anybody else from the Fire Nation, but at least he knew it. At least he agreed with her that he'd been wrong.

"Maybe," Sokka agreed. "But what if he's not? Yue's a princess, yeah, but she's probably not the first Water Tribe prisoner of war ever. The Fire Lord's got a way more personal problem with General Iroh—"

"So we'll figure it out then!" Katara snapped. "What do you want from me, anyway?"

Sokka's eyes narrowed. "I want you to actually think about it," he said. "You know not everybody from the Fire Nation is Prince Zuko—you _know_ it. Zhao's lieutenant lady helped us, those fire sage people helped us. Roku helped us, too. You're the one who told us Aang had a Fire Nation friend one time. Uh, sorry to bring that up again, buddy," he added, glancing up and then sideways, left and then right.

"He's up on deck somewhere," Katara said sharply. Sokka wasn't wrong, except that he was: it was—it was different. He wasn't thinking about it the right way. "And that has nothing to do with this. The war hadn't even started yet when Aang was alive. Zhao's lieutenant stopped him because he was about to _kill the moon_. And those three sages? Helped us because the other forty of them were trying to murder us—and they probably only did it because I'm the Avatar, anyway. If we'd just been a couple Water Tribe kids and a Kyoshi warrior, do you think they would have done anything for us?"

"Maybe," Sokka said. "Maybe not. We don't know! And we won't know whether any of them might help you learn how to Firebend, either, if we don't _ask_ some of them."

Katara shut her eyes for a second. He was still wrong, but he'd made a better point than he might even have realized, with the sages—if they'd helped her because she was the Avatar, maybe someone else might, too. Maybe they'd make an exception.

And that burned to think about; that was Master Pakku all over again in its own way. First she hadn't really been a girl, or she had been but it could be ignored—and now maybe she wasn't really Water Tribe, could hold on to the thought that it might not be held against her, as if that were anything to be glad about. As if she should be grateful for that forbearance.

But she had to master the elements before the comet came. And there might not be any other way to do it.

"I'll keep it in mind," she managed to say, and then bent down to grab her pack so she wouldn't have to look Sokka in the face. "You should get your stuff together, we're nearly there," and then she stepped around him and left before he could say anything else.

  


*

  


The rain only got heavier as they drew closer to the island. Like the spirits were trying to warn them off, Katara couldn't help thinking, trying to tell them this was a bad idea. Which it was. It was just that they had to do it anyway. There wasn't anybody else who could help Yue—and it was Katara's fault that Yue had left her home at all. They had to.

Aang went off ahead of them, a soft blue spirit-light gleaming in the fog, and came back with the news that there was an inlet a little way south along the shore. "And I didn't see anybody," he added, and glanced up—the rain, of course, was falling through him. "I guess it's not great weather for catching the Avatar sneaking around."

And suddenly it felt like no time at all before they were—they were done. They didn't need to borrow any of the scout ship's sampans; even when the water was as warm as this, Katara could still hold a floe together long enough to carry everybody who needed carrying to shore.

Once the anchor had dropped, she stayed at the rail for a moment and just looked. She almost wanted to tell Father to turn around, to take them back, and this was just about the last moment she could. She didn't _want_ him to go. She didn't want to be left here, with nothing but a map and Prince Zuko's word to help her find her way—not that she was alone, with Sokka and Suki, Toph, Aang. But she was the Avatar. They were trusting her. And she wanted to yell, _But I don't know what I'm doing!_ —to shake them until they understood. But she couldn't.

Yue needed them, and they had to go.

  


*

  


Once they were all assembled in the belly of the ship, it was Toph who looked the most out of place: she hadn't been with them in Jindao, and of course she didn't want to hear anybody say it, but none of them had anything that was even remotely small enough to fit her. Father and his warriors had been dressed up in Fire Nation armor ever since they'd left the river, and Prince Zuko—

Prince Zuko, Katara thought, almost managed to look like he belonged among them.

His hair had changed; it was short now, he couldn't keep it tied back the way he once had. And the clothes he was wearing weren't the same as the armor he'd had on in Suki's village, or through the spyglass in Shinsotsu—they weren't even the bland lightweight gear he'd worn when he'd found them in Kanjusuk.

But he looked the same in them. Surrounded by helmeted Fire Nation soldiers, standing in the middle of a navy vessel, in red: he looked the same as he ever had. He looked like an enemy.

Until Mikama made a grumpy noise and then reached up and popped her helmet off, anyway. "If we are alone here," she said, shaking out her hair in relief, "then I refuse to keep this pot on my head any longer than I must."

"If it were a pot," Cousin Ukara murmured, "it would not have a hole for your face."

"Yes, and you'd prefer that, wouldn't you?" Mikama said with a laugh, and then joyfully elbowed Cousin Ukara in the ribs.

It was a little easier to breathe, after that—and then harder again, once Father stepped forward to wrap one arm around Sokka and the other around Katara. "Whatever happens now," he murmured into Katara's hair, "please know that I am so proud of you both, and I will be counting the days until we see one another again."

Katara couldn't find the words to answer; but she squeezed back really really hard, and she was pretty sure he would know what she meant.

Once she and Sokka had stepped back again, Prince Zuko moved. Katara almost hit him for it, reflexive—but he wasn't doing anything wrong. At least not right that second. He looked at Cousin Ukara for a moment, and then at Father, and then he brought his hands together, one a fist and one flat, and bowed a little. "Thank you," he said.

He was so stiff about it, so unrelentingly awkward. It had to grate on him, Katara thought grimly, prince that he was— _bowing_ to Father, to some Water Tribe chieftain he couldn't possibly have any actual respect for.

But Father—Father was polite, maybe, or kind, or both. Father just looked at him and waited for him to straighten up again, and then inclined his own head for a moment in acknowledgment. "You have your own reasons, I know," Father said, "but you have still chosen to help my daughter, when no one asked or even thought to expect it of you. So I hope you will find you can believe me when I say: you are welcome."

Kinder than Prince Zuko had any right to expect. Katara hoped meanly that he realized it, but if he did it was hard to tell—he stared at Father silently for a long moment, swallowing, and then looked away and didn't say anything.

The hull-ramp was already lowering, anyway. They'd go, and Father would leave; they'd find somewhere to stay the night—somewhere where Toph and Katara could punch a nice big overhang into place to keep the rain at bay—and then they'd start looking for people in the morning, a village where Toph could get some clothes that wouldn't fall off her. There wasn't any point wasting time. Katara hitched her pack a little higher on her shoulders and walked down the ramp, and then knelt down and put her hand in the water and watched the ice begin to form.

  


* * *

  


It was honestly impressive, how far the colonies had come.

Of course, even after a hundred years there was nothing on the western coast to rival even Saifuhan or Bopai—which could generously be described as "charmingly provincial"—let alone Da Su-Lien itself. And a certain purity could be said to be lacking: looking around the port authority building, Azula could see a squatness to the lines of the place, a bulky solidity, that was Earth Kingdom all over. The eaves were barely even flared.

But that was no doubt a consequence of using Earth labor to help build the place, which was only reasonable. Any and every resource needed to be exploited to maintain a foothold over the course of a war like this one. And when you used whatever was in front of you, when you needed things done more than you needed them done right, well. A little ideological rot creeping in around the edges was simply to be expected—and when the war was finally won, it would be easy enough to burn away.

When the war was finally won. And that surely couldn't be far away now, could it? She didn't want to be smiling when the harbormaster returned, he might get the impression that it had been acceptable to make her wait; but oh, it was so difficult not to. Ba Sing Se, fallen—by _her_ hand, using the tools the Earth kingdoms' own beloved Kyoshi had left poised for her use. Where Uncle himself had failed, and then failed again in letting her capture him. She couldn't have planned it better if she'd been trying: sharing the news with Father in one breath and presenting him with Uncle in the next could do nothing but highlight the magnitude of the achievement.

Yes, it was better this way. She could certainly still have killed Uncle—but Father would understand why she hadn't. It would be almost as advantageous for him in its own way, after all. He could share the news of their great victory with the people, and then celebrate with the public execution of the traitor who had kept that victory from them for so long. It was thematically appropriate in a way Father would appreciate. He'd understand why she'd done all this the way she had. He'd approve.

And they had made such good time reaching the coast. If the sailing went equally smoothly, she might well be the first confirmation Father received. Of course, it was typhoon season—but then she had a Waterbender, didn't she? A Waterbender who could be made to do as Azula ordered, whatever Uncle said.

Ah, there—footsteps. Azula chose an expression of mild boredom; enough to make it clear she was displeased, and yet of course she couldn't seem _angry_. As if the harbormaster were important enough for a crown princess to lose her composure over! Ridiculous.

"Your Highness—so sorry, my deepest apologies—"

"Yes, yes," Azula said, with a dismissive flick of the hand. "You've wasted enough of my time already, don't force me to listen to your excuses."

"Of course not, Highness," the harbormaster said quickly—and she supposed it was to his credit that he bowed low after and did in fact shut his mouth. The urge to explain yourself was a difficult one to conquer, and he certainly had plenty of explanations to reach for. It was so early the sun had barely risen. It was entirely possible that his assistant had had to wake him outright to get him here.

"I require a ship," Azula told him. "The fastest in your harbor, and its crew. Bring me the captain—and a brush and ink. I do not have time to meet with whatever admiral or sub-admiral is in charge here, but I am sure my seal will suffice." _And if the admiral's unhappy about it, that will be your problem, since I'll already be gone._

The harbormaster had to realize it—but it wasn't as though he could object. He could only say, "Of course, Highness," and bow again, and then do exactly as she'd asked.

  


* * *

  


It should have been hard to fall asleep there, in enemy territory; but the rain was actually kind of soothing once it wasn't getting on them anymore, and beyond it Katara thought she could maybe still hear the ocean. It had been such a long time since she'd fallen asleep to the sound of it—she hadn't even realized how much she'd missed it. The smell, too: different, when it wasn't coming to her carried on the crisp bright air over the ice fields, but still familiar.

So in the end she'd been able to let it drag her down without too much trouble. It was warm and close and dark beneath the shelter she and Toph had made, and then it was warm and close and dark behind her eyelids, and then she slid away and was gone.

It was so easy, in fact, that she was vaguely surprised to wake.

She actually thought for a long moment that she hadn't, that she was just dreaming about lying down. It was still so dark it didn't quite seem real, and she found herself almost—waiting for something, a funny quality to the stillness like something had happened, just a moment before she woke, that she couldn't remember having felt or heard.

And that was weird in a dream kind of way, except that an instant later something _did_ happen.

She wasn't even sure how to categorize it: a tremor in the earth, maybe, or a noise so low and distant she hadn't actually quite heard it. She blinked and pressed a hand to the ground, because if it was a tremor, maybe she could feel it—

Yes, there it was again, a little bigger, a little louder.

"Whuzza?"

Toph had rolled over, bleary, and her hand landed almost on top of Katara's—her face was basically invisible, but Katara could imagine the way she'd be wrinkling her nose, the sleepy confusion.

"I don't know," Katara whispered. "Can you tell?" The Fire Nation had things—earthquakes, volcanoes; the books Sokka had found in the library at the university had gone into a fair amount of detail. If this was something like that—

"Mmph," Toph said, and shifted around so she could flatten her palm properly against the ground.

Somebody else moved—Sokka, Katara was pretty sure.

"Cut that out," Toph muttered, and Sokka promptly moved again, yawning.

"Whatsit?" he said, through the tail end of the yawn.

"Don't know," Toph said, and then yawned herself. "'S coming from the ground, yeah, but—mm. Doesn't feel like a landslide. Too regular."

"Soldiers?" Katara said, suddenly much more awake, but Toph didn't seem fazed.

"Don't think so," she said. "Not regular enough. But if it is, they're pretty far away anyhow."

"If it's not about to kill us," Sokka murmured, "then I say we go back to sleep," and then he promptly followed his own advice. It was impressive, really, how fast he started snoring.

Katara waited a little longer—long enough to be sure Toph was right. But she was. If it _was_ soldiers, they weren't getting any closer; and if it was something else, it didn't seem to be coming for them. It didn't seem to have anything to do with them at all.

And that was a really, really nice thought to fall back asleep to.

  


*

  


Whatever the sound had been, it was gone by morning. If it had gotten any louder, then Katara had slept through it just fine—which was good, because they hadn't managed to find a road yet and the underbrush was really impressive around here.

Aang couldn't be any help, unfortunately; he'd never been here while he was alive. Katara had only had about half a minute to ask him about it before Zuko'd woken up, and then she couldn't look at him anymore, couldn't reply to him. The last thing she wanted was the prince of the Fire Nation knowing she had an invisible, intangible former Avatar helping her.

But it was pretty hard to not make faces at him when he could just float through everything untouched.

"Man, this is almost as bad as that swamp," Sokka said, shoving forward ahead of her, and then he yelped and lurched back, sputtering, when a broad wet leaf smacked him in the face. "Wasn't it just winter? _Is_ there winter here? Or is it just like this all the t—"

"Are you lost?"

They all jerked at once and looked up the slope: they'd been trying to find a good place to start scaling it, but maybe they should have just gone for it, because up at the top of the ridge, someone was peering down at them through all the greenery.

"Or stuck or something?" the person offered, after a moment. "Did you fall down?"

Katara glanced at Prince Zuko, but apparently there was no secret Fire-Nation-specific answer to that question, no code involved. He stared back at her blankly, and he didn't do anything to stop Sokka from saying cheerfully, "Nah, we just have no idea what we're doing. Is there a road up there or something?"

"... Yes?"

"Awesome," Sokka said.

  


*

  


The person—a boy—hadn't lied: there was a road. But that was strange, too, Katara thought, because even the dirt here was the wrong color, the wrong texture. Just another thing to add to the list.

Of course Aang couldn't help them climb, even though he could get up the hill faster than any of them. But once they'd gotten far enough up the slope, the boy reached down through the leaves to offer Sokka a hand up and over the edge of the roadway. And then he saw Zuko coming toward him next—and took a deliberate step away.

Did he know? Was he about to bow? Or, worse, would he shout for someone, run off and find some soldiers and tell them who he'd seen? Zuko was still technically exiled, as far as Katara knew, and breaking the law just by setting foot on Fire Nation soil. It seemed somehow unfair that having the prince on their side, however temporarily, could get them in just as much trouble as being who they were—

But the boy didn't run. He just looked at Zuko, at his clothes and his face and his hair, with a long hard stare. And then he said, odd and sharp, "Enjoying your stay, mainlander?"

"He's not," Katara said, way too fast, which was exactly the wrong way to try to fix this. "I mean, he is, but we aren't. We're from the colonies. He's—" and oh, she couldn't grit her teeth, had to smile instead, and she hoped it didn't look as uncomfortable as it felt. "He's our friend."

"He's showing us around," Sokka added.

Which was a stroke of brilliance, because it made the boy snort. "Oh, okay," he said, and then, wry, "Then I guess I get why you were crashing around in the woods."

He kept his gaze on Zuko while he said it, but Zuko was pretty restrained: he didn't set the kid on fire for it.

"Yeah," Sokka said blandly, "he's not too good with directions."

And that made Zuko's jaw tighten; but still, still, no flames burst from his fingertips. It was almost disappointing—Katara wouldn't have minded having an excuse to fight with him.

Except it would be better not to. They were colonials, and he was their mainland friend who was traveling with them, and friends didn't shove friends into Earthbent holes in the ground and leave them there.

As hard as it was to remember that whenever she looked at Zuko's stupid face.

The kid laughed again, not as sharp this time, and afterward he was still smiling—so maybe he did believe them. Or at least he didn't disbelieve them enough for it to be a problem. "I'm Naram," he said.

Katara thought about lying, but only for a second. It would just make everything harder; if she had trouble answering to the name she'd given him, that would make him more suspicious, not less. And how was this kid going to know the difference between a Southern Water Tribe name and some new colonial trend? So—"Katara," she told him. "That's my brother, Sokka, and that's Suki. And our _friend_ over there is—"

"Li," Prince Zuko said, before she could finish. "I am Li."

He couldn't be the only person in the whole Fire Nation named Zuko; but then again maybe it wasn't common—maybe the royal family chose special names nobody else could use, or something. Katara had no idea. Naram gave Zuko another narrow-eyed look, but didn't push, so "Li" must have been an okay Fire Nation name. And she wasn't worried about remembering it. She wasn't planning to talk to Zuko directly at all, if she could help it.

"And you want to get to town, huh?" Naram said.

"Yep," Sokka said. "We're—um, planning to meet up with another friend of ours, and we—wanted to get her a present? New clothes. Is there a place we could get something like that?"

  


*

  


There was, as it turned out. The village that Naram brought them to was big enough that it could have impressed Katara with its size once—if she hadn't been through a dozen cities since, if she weren't coming to it straight from Ba Sing Se itself.

"My house is that way," Naram said, pointing. "This is—"

He stopped and bit the inside of his cheek; his eyes flicked over to Zuko, and for a second his face looked suddenly weird: angry, hard-edged, in a way that didn't make sense on a kid that young. He wasn't any taller than Toph—and with cheeks like Aang's, made for smiling. He shouldn't have been looking at anybody that way.

But he did. And then he tilted his chin up and said, "Khmao Sreng."

Sokka and Zuko, hilariously, frowned at nearly the same time. "That—doesn't sound like any of the names that were on the map," Sokka said.

"Ma-Yu-Sung," Zuko said, and Sokka's face cleared.

"Oh, okay," he said, and then, breezy, "Anything we need to know?"

Naram didn't answer. He was still looking at Zuko.

"Many famous court dancers once came from this island," Zuko said, in the flat slow way people said things they'd memorized a long time ago.

"Once?" Suki prompted.

Zuko glanced at her, and then, oddly, back at Naram, like he thought the kid might speak up. But Naram looked away and stayed silent, and so it was Zuko who said, "Dancing is against the law in Ma-Yu-Sung. And on this entire island."

  


***

  


"I'm sorry, what?" Sokka said, blinking. "Against the law?"

He looked bewildered. They all did; even the Avatar had stopped glaring at Zuko, the better to frown at him in confusion.

"Yes," Zuko said.

"Dancing?" Suki said. "Why?"

Zuko waited a moment, but the islander boy didn't leap in to fill the gap. He just stood there with his arms crossed, looking away, face blank. And there was no reason why any of the rest of them should know the details, Zuko supposed.

"There was a dancer in—" and then Zuko caught himself before he could say _my grandfather_. "In Fire Lord Azulon's court. She came from Ma-Yu-Sung, not long after the third rebellion."

The Avatar and her friends didn't seem to feel like this clarified anything. "... And?" the Avatar said.

"And there was a fourth rebellion," Zuko said slowly. He'd—he'd realized they might not recall the specifics, but a court dancer and the fourth rebellion—the fourth rebellion bringing with it General Ishama's name, of course, because the two were inextricably linked—

Or at least they always had been by Zuko's tutors. Common knowledge, and more than that: fact, unquestionable, understood. But what would the Water Tribes know about any of it? And if they had known, if the Avatar and her brother had filed into some icy little schoolroom for lessons on Fire Nation history, would a Water Tribe tutor have explained it all the same way Zuko's had?

"It was suppressed," he explained, glancing at each of them in turn, watching their faces. He felt almost—nervous, or—he could not say what the feeling was, only that it made his heart trip fast in his chest. "There was a banquet held for General Ishama, whose victory it was, so the Fire Lord could honor her personally. The dancer was to perform during the festivities, a traditional dance from this island."

"And she did it?" Suki asked quietly.

"She—began," Zuko said. "She altered the steps. Drew close enough to the dais to kill General Ishama, and then killed herself. So the Fire Lord outlawed dancing here."

"Oh, okay," Sokka said, falsely bright, "I get it now. Not only are you awful to everybody else, you're awful to yourselves, too!"

It had always been told to Zuko like a parable, a fable with a lesson: this was how foolish people would be, if you let them. This was what you did to save them from themselves, to bring order and piety, consciousness of place, where it had not previously existed. And it had always sounded—true.

"Her actions undermined our nation," Zuko said, and for once he was not repeating the tutors when he said it, echoing rotely. For once, _he_ was saying it, feeling the words in his mouth and understanding what he was saying when he used them; and watching what happened to the Avatar's face as she heard them. "The unity of our people is—"

"—not worth that," the Avatar said, very low, and turned away from him.

All at once Zuko remembered that the boy was still there. But he didn't seem suspicious. He was looking at the Avatar carefully, and then he said, "Different in the colonies, I guess."

The Avatar blinked, swallowing, and then said, "Yeah. Yes. Different."

  


***

  


Naram took them to—it wasn't quite a tailor's shop, at least not the way Katara had started to think of tailors' shops after seeing them in Ba Sing Se. But there was fabric and there were clothes, and the smiling woman who ran the place said she might have something that would fit, a rejected set that had been made for someone else. "Awful man," she told them cheerily. "Sorry his daughter never got to wear them, but not sorry to lose his business."

"Thanks," Sokka said, already digging around for some money.

The woman turned away, humming, and Katara took the opportunity to catch Sokka's elbow and say, "I'll be outside."

"What? Yeah, okay. Just don't get lost."

"Ha ha," Katara said, rolling her eyes, and ducked back out the door.

She let the expression slide off the way it wanted to, once she was outside; she crossed her arms and tucked her hands tight, tight, against her ribs, looking up at the flat gray sky.

"Katara?" Aang said, catching up to her, and she turned away because she couldn't figure out how to answer—she couldn't figure out how she _felt_.

There was a dark aimless anger that had been following her like a shadow since they'd stepped off the ship. Or, no, earlier: since she'd taken these clothes out of her pack, knowing she'd have to put them on. Knowing everyone here would look at her and think she was one of them, and she couldn't tell them they were wrong.

 _The unity of our people_. Zuko had said it like there was such a thing; and Katara would have believed it, any other time _except_ right after that story he'd told. That had always been how it had seemed to her, after all. In her head the Fire Nation was one vast prowling machine, a single huge battleship billowing smoke and cracking its way inexorably through the ice. Fire Nation sailors and raiders all wore the same uniform, and if the one for soldiers was different, it wasn't different enough for it to matter. They were a faceless helmeted mass, the enemy; they were Fire Nation and Katara hated them—

Lieutenant Yin. It had been so long ago it almost felt like it had happened to someone else, but—but she hadn't been wearing a helmet, that day she'd helped Katara and Jong Han escape. Katara could only just remember something of the look of her face, her sober eyes as she'd ordered Katara to hit her and run away. And the sages—

Exceptions. Or Katara was the exception, whichever. But apparently there was a whole island of exceptions, smiling helpful tailor-women and kids who liked to glare at Zuko just as much as Katara did, even if they didn't know who he was. A whole island of people who'd fought the Fire Nation and lost, and that they _were_ Fire Nation didn't seem to have made a difference.

"Katara."

How could it not? The Fire Nation was everything Katara had spent her whole life fighting against—how could it not matter? How could she be feeling _sorry_ for these people—just because they couldn't _dance_ , of all things—

"Katara!"

She looked down. There were tattoos on her upper arms, winding sak yant; it was right and wrong at the same time, for them to be there and for her to know those words. And she was wearing—her favorite dress, a festival dress. She'd done half the embroidery herself, red and black and gold, and she was pleased and proud to wear it. That was why she had come home: she was the Avatar, she had duties elsewhere, but even the Avatar could go home for festival days, sometimes.

She looked up and laughed, spun once in place just to feel the weight of the jewelry at her wrists and ankles. There would be one of the formal traditional dances later, with costumes, headdresses, an entire story-song; but until then the whole village plaza was a whirl of color and motion, drums and bells and someone in the distance with a tro sau—

"Hey," Sokka said, sharp, and Katara blinked and saw him, felt his hands where they were wrapped tight around her shoulders, even though they hadn't been there a second ago.

"What?"

"You were, uh." Sokka cleared his throat and then raised an eyebrow, and let go of one of her shoulders to motion vaguely toward his eyes. "Doing that thing. Lighting up? Of all the places to have one of your little demonstrations, this is a really, really bad one—"

"No," Katara said, "I wasn't going to do anything," and then, hardly knowing where the words were coming from, "It was Kunnarya. She was—she loved to dance."

"O-kay," Sokka said, and then exchanged a quick glance with Suki and patted Katara on the shoulder. It was just lucky he couldn't see Aang, who was giving Katara a similarly concerned stare from right over Sokka's shoulder. "Let's just take these back to Toph, all right? She'll be super excited about her present."

Which, if you thought of the present as "not having to wait around for them in hiding anymore", instead of "new clothes", was absolutely true. "Yeah," Katara said, and straightened up, shaking herself a little. No past Avatars had shown up in a while, that was all. She was fine. "Yeah, all right."

"Great! Seriously, I can't leave you alone for five minutes." Sokka shook his head. "Thanks, buddy," he added over his shoulder to Naram, waving, and then, a little more quietly, "Come on, let's get out of here before you set off an earthquake again."

  


*

  


Toph wasn't waiting for them quietly, of course. She'd kicked a few boulders out of the ground in the forest and was smashing them into each other, apparently to find out which one would crack first—and she didn't seem to care what a terrible idea it was to wander around Earthbending in Fire Nation territory.

"Whatever," she said, shrugging, when Katara hissed precisely this at her. "There's nobody around! I would have felt it if there were—sure felt _you_ coming, you guys are like a herd of elephant buffalo. Did you get the clothes or what?"

Sokka obediently handed them over; and Toph inspected them carefully, running her hands along the seams and hems and embroidery, squinting absently up at the sky, and then declared them "fine, I guess" and wandered off to punch herself a changing space.

"Okay!" Sokka said, clapping his hands. "So. Where are we headed, _Li_?"

Zuko looked at him impassively. He'd been like that all morning, expressionless: through Naram's glaring and sharp remarks, telling them that horrible story, all of it. Rebellion by itself was a weird enough concept to try to grasp, Katara thought—when people disagreed with Father, they just ... disagreed. Argued, sometimes, and were talked down by Gran-Gran. People did as Father said, most of the time, because he was chief and because they trusted him; but if they hadn't, he'd—he'd have _talked_ to them, explained why he needed them to do what he needed them to do. They wouldn't have _attacked_ him. And he—he wouldn't have killed them for it.

But Zuko and his blank face talked like that was normal. _The fourth rebellion_ , he'd said, and that had been a couple Fire Lords ago—what number were they up to now? Maybe he didn't even realize it didn't have to be that way, Katara thought. Maybe he didn't know you could just _not_ kill people who didn't like you.

Then again—

Then again, he had to know Katara didn't like him, and he hadn't done anything to her. At least not yet.

"We keep heading toward the mainland," Zuko was telling Sokka. "We aren't close enough for you to need to know any more than that."

"Aw, come on, can't you give me a hint?" Sokka had pulled out the map, and flailed it irritatedly at Zuko. "General direction—"

"No," Zuko said. And the worst part was, Katara couldn't even claim he was being stupid. If he told them where this fancy Fire Nation prison was—why _shouldn't_ they leave him behind? Why wouldn't they?

"What if we get separated? If you get kidnapped by rebels or something—"

"—then he'd probably rather we had a good reason to rescue him," Toph said, coming out from between the trees behind Sokka.

The clothes were pretty nice, and Toph looked weirdly comfortable in them—but then they had to be far from the fanciest thing she'd ever worn in her life.

She struck a little pose, as if to give them a chance to admire her even though she couldn't possibly see their expressions, and then added, "Look, how to get there isn't the problem. He's not going to take us the wrong way or anything, not when his uncle needs our help just as much as Yue does."

Sokka sighed, but rolled up the map again and said, "Yeah, I get it: the actual problem's going to be getting inside it without dying. And finding Yue and what's-his-face. And getting back out again. At least we can scope the place out without anybody knowing—"

"How?" Zuko said.

Katara went still, and couldn't stop herself from flicking a glance sideways at Aang. Not that it mattered; even if Zuko noticed her doing it, he'd never guess what was actually going on.

She would probably have to tell Zuko sooner or later. If nothing else, the odds that she'd make a mistake the way she had with Toph and talk to Aang without thinking got bigger the longer Zuko was with them. But until then, she didn't _want_ to. And if Aang wanted her to be honest about it, he was at least kind enough not to say so: he just looked back at her and nodded once, grave and glowing.

"Uh, just—a freaky Avatar powers thing," Sokka said, waving a hand. "Not important. And speaking of which," and he turned to Katara, "I don't think this breaking into prison thing is going to be easy no matter what happens. But it might be _easier_ with as many freaky Avatar powers on our side as possible."

Katara glared at him, but couldn't muster any real anger. She should have known he wasn't going to leave it alone, after he'd brought it up on the ship. He was almost as stubborn about this kind of thing as she was.

"We can—keep an eye out," she said shortly, and didn't look at Zuko. There had to be plenty of other Firebenders out there. Firebenders who weren't members of the royal family; who'd never joined the army or anything; who'd never hurt anyone on purpose.

At least, like, one. Maybe two, if she was lucky.

"Think of it this way," Suki said, and then didn't elaborate until Katara actually looked at her. She'd been watching them all talk, standing silently with her arms crossed, face almost as carefully blank as Prince Zuko's. But now she deliberately met Katara's eyes and smiled, just a little. "Worst comes to worst, we'll have Zuko call you names. Maybe insult your hair."

"As long as the rest of you are at a safe distance," Katara said wryly. But—she _had_ used fire in the courtyard in Changmei, or at least she was pretty sure she had. She almost remembered it happening, a sudden blaze of heat and light, the startled cries of the soldiers who'd been closest.

Even if she couldn't find a teacher, she could Firebend anyway. Maybe that would be good enough.

  


* * *

  


Joo Dee had not taken over the Grand Secretary's office.

She could have. No one would have objected. It was not clear to any of the Dai Li precisely how Princess Azula had intended the position of Supreme Bureaucratic Administrator to fit into their existing structure; for the moment, they were erring on the side of treating Joo Dee as equivalent to the Grand Secretary, and potentially more highly-ranked still.

She had needed new robes—no longer senior third rank, after all, and the embroidery that identified her to her colleagues was therefore incorrect. Princess Azula had instructed that the circled squares of the Dai Li be replaced with phoenixes. Joo Dee was not sure why this was more appropriate than a Fire Nation flame, but nevertheless, Princess Azula's instructions were to be followed.

The princess would no doubt have been delighted if Joo Dee _had_ claimed the Grand Secretary's office as her own. But she had not left instructions on that matter, and so Joo Dee was free to do what seemed most appropriate; and that was to leave the office precisely as it was, prepared for and available to the next Grand Secretary.

It served as a meaningful sign to the rest of the Dai Li: Joo Dee, Supreme Bureaucratic Administrator, expected that there would be a next Grand Secretary—that the Dai Li would be neither reshaped nor dismantled, that security and stability remained within reach. And—

And Joo Dee did not want it.

Foolish. She had not killed Long Feng within it; it was pristine, in perfect order, as though he'd stepped out of it for a moment and had yet to return. No blood had touched it.

But she did not want it, and was glad to have a clear rationale for choosing not to take it.

So the uniform was not a problem; and her own office would perhaps require refurbishing, but at the moment, lengths of green silk embroidered with the princess's favored phoenixes, pinned at either side of the door, would suffice. Reports that would normally have been compiled for the Grand Secretary were redirected to her—but that would only last as long as the emptiness in the Grand Secretary's office. That was not a cause for concern.

There was, in fact, only one thing that _was_ a cause for concern; and Joo Dee sat in her office, behind her silk-edged door, and stared at it where it lay on her desk.

The order was not complicated. It had taken only one sheet of rice paper to write out, only a few lines of characters over the princess's personal seal.

And Joo Dee could not claim to be surprised that the princess wanted the king found. The _former king_ , as the orders put it, and Joo Dee would be sure to say it that way when she spoke to Princess Azula aloud; but—she did not have to think it.

The king remained the king. His throne was his, and his alone. All this had been done in order to _save_ him, as a part of the unbroken line of kings whom the Dai Li did their utmost to support and to preserve—such was the logic Long Feng must surely have employed.

But Long Feng had not thought Princess Azula would have him executed, and had been wrong. If Long Feng had also thought the princess would allow the king to remain, a figurehead—what was there to say he had not been wrong again?

Joo Dee had been almost as displeased as the princess, to learn that His Majesty had escaped from the palace; the failure had belonged to the Dai Li, and at that time Joo Dee had thought it paramount that the Dai Li fail as rarely as possible. But—

But she found herself almost glad, looking down at the single page on her desk, that she did not know where the king was, and that Princess Azula was gone—that Joo Dee had time to decide where to begin the search.

And time to decide whether or not she wanted it to succeed.

  


* * *

  


Wan Liu pressed her ear against the door and tried not to breathe too loudly.

There had not been any real trouble yet, at least not for them. Some arrests had been made here and there in this section of the Lower Ring—mostly people who openly caused trouble, spitting on Fire Nation soldiers or turning their backs. Sometimes it had not gone as far as arrest; a beating was deemed sufficient disincentive. But there had not been riots. Too many people cowed, or comforted, or something in between, by the green-robed Dai Li who accompanied the Fire Nation patrols through each district.

And so far, searches had been confined to people who were out on the streets at the wrong hours, or who wished to pass between districts, let alone between Rings. The patrols were shows of force; they had not begun entering houses or shops, had not begun turning over stones.

But Wan Liu knew that at any moment they might, because she knew what they would be looking for when they did.

At last the clank of armored footsteps grew fainter. Wan Liu stayed where she was long enough to decide it did not sound like they meant to stop or turn around, and then she leaned away from the door with a sigh and said, "It's all right now."

And the king of Ba Sing Se stuck his head out from under the bed and said, "Oh, excellent. It's a bit dusty down here, you know."

"Well, in that case," said his sister, and held out the hand-broom to him.

Li Chen had been very gracious indeed about the clothing Wan Liu had lent to her, even though it did not fit her well; and she had also been insistent that with it, she was unremarkable enough that she did not need to hide as thoroughly as her brother, whose face was better-known. Wan Liu thought this was probably true. And it was probably also true that if this place _were_ searched by soldiers, Li Chen could cause enough of a distraction through her own capture to give the king a chance to get away.

Wan Liu had not expected to play host to a king. She could not blame Mushi; his plan for the king might have worked very well if the timing had been right. But as it was, the king and his sister and the children had only just reached safety before a line of Fire Nation soldiers had taken up positions in the street. That first awful evening, there had been no patrols—only that constant presence, shouts of _Citizen! Halt!_ ringing out now and then, and otherwise a strange and pervasive silence, but for the crackle of flames. That was what Wan Liu remembered most clearly: the quiet of it. The city had _fallen_ , and yet there had been so little fighting—the Fire Nation had not made war against Ba Sing Se, it had just ... appeared within it, so suddenly and in such numbers that there had been nothing to fight, that the battle had been lost before it had even begun.

And Wan Liu—Wan Liu was an old woman, with nieces and nephews to look after. There was a world where no king had come to her door and she had kept her head down anyway, had done as she was told, because there was no victory in sight except the tacit victory of survival.

But here there was a king; and she kept her head down and did not have to be ashamed of herself for it. That was the best way to keep him safe.

"Ooh, ooh, let me," said Jin, and wriggled away from Qingying to dive under the bed with the king. It had been easy enough to convince him that staying very quiet and still while the soldiers passed by was a game—it was just not a game he was always interested in. But he liked the king, who took everything he said quite seriously and was therefore an excellent person to talk to about the perilous adventures undertaken by Earth trains; and he also liked getting to roll around under the bed.

Lan was old enough to understand that the game was not really a game, and also could be relied upon to look after Yanhong, which Qingying could not always do when she was busy trying to entertain Jin. And Zhiyang—Zhiyang still did not speak, and Wan Liu felt guilty every time she caught herself considering that a blessing.

She sighed and pressed a knuckle to the bridge of her nose, and for a moment allowed herself to close her eyes. This was not anything she'd expected, when she'd chosen to let an old man and his nephew do a few chores for her one evening in exchange for their supper. And if she had known, if she'd seen all this coming—would she have turned them away? Or not?

The weight of a hand on her shoulder startled her out of her thoughts.

"A thousand apologies," Li Chen said, dipping her head in the smallest possible bow.

Wan Liu almost wanted to tell her they were not accepted, not a single one of the thousand: the warmth of a friendly touch was anchoring, steadying, and if there were anything Wan Liu needed more, she could not think of it at the moment.

But there was no way to say it that did not sound overdramatic; she settled for, "No need, no need," and a smile, which she hoped was not wavering too badly.

Li Chen hesitated, and then said, "You may find yourself wanting them in a moment. I fear this will sound strange, and also impolite, but—"

"But?" Wan Liu prompted, when Li Chen did not continue.

"But," Li Chen said slowly, "your guests. Mushi and his nephew. Did they—leave anything behind? Anything at all."

Ah. Yes, certainly impolite, to ask to be allowed to search a person's belongings in their absence. But also perfectly understandable, if Li Chen knew Mushi had been carrying around a queen's seal. Such a thing would not help Li Chen and the king anymore, in a Fire Nation city; but who knew what else Mushi might have had with him? And he had no need of it anymore, not if he was with the Avatar—and whether he was or wasn't, it seemed clear that he had left the city. Besides, he had sent Li Chen and the king here so that they might be helped. If he'd remained and could have been asked for his permission, Wan Liu suspected he would have granted it.

"Yes, yes, they did," she said aloud, "and if there is anything there that might be useful to you and your brother, then I am sure he would like you to make use of it. I—the swords are Li's, but—"

She did not have to clarify. Li Chen and the king had been trapped here for days, which had been more than enough time for them to notice that Qingying kept a pair of sheathed swords with her all the time. Leaning against the wall, or the floor, or tucked securely beneath her bent knee as she sat—and she did not have a belt for them, but had been working away on weaving herself one, knotting together scraps and rags, every moment she was not looking after Jin or Yanhong.

"I am sure we will have no need of them," Li Chen said, low, and then smiled, wry and a little flat. "If Fire Nation soldiers discover us here, I do not think two swords will make the difference, however finely honed they are. But there is a chance that Mushi has left behind something else that will, and if he has then I would like to find it."

  


* * *

  


Even after Sokka quit nagging Zuko about the prison's location, they wasted enough time arguing over the map that it started to get dark. And, more importantly, Toph's stomach started to growl. No matter where they were going, she didn't want to be hungry when they got there. She slammed her foot into the ground, shoving the rough shape of a firepit up out of it, and proclaimed it dinnertime.

The fire was okay because they weren't super obviously dragging around an Earth Kingdom citizen anymore, and everybody was eager for hot food. Sokka started it without even asking Zuko for help; but then again, Toph supposed, Katara probably wouldn't have let Zuko do her a favor like that even if both her arms were broken. She was so weird about that stuff.

But Sokka got the fire going without too much trouble, in the end. They were comfortable, it wasn't raining, and the food was good. Katara didn't even get in any arguments with anybody. And Zuko didn't quite sit _with_ them, but he also didn't sit on the opposite side of the clearing like he didn't even know them. So, overall, Toph figured it had been a success.

Or at least that was what she was thinking, right before the ground started to shake.

"Shake" maybe was overstating it—it wasn't a _lot_ of movement, it was just really strange. It was coming from beneath them, sort of, and for an instant Toph couldn't help thinking it felt like those things in Ba Sing Se, the tanks; but this was further away, and not moving closer.

And Katara might be distracted and grumpy, but she wasn't _totally_ useless at Earthbending anymore. Toph could feel the thump of her palm coming down against the ground, and then she turned to Toph and said, "What _is_ that?"

"What?" Sokka said.

"There's something—rumbling somewhere," Toph said.

"Fire Nation?" Suki said, shifting—putting a hand to one of her fans, Toph guessed.

"Well, I mean, yeah," Toph said, waving around at the Fire Nation they were currently in. "But it's not a tank or anything. It's not really moving, it's just rumbling. There's—maybe some shouting?"

"Definitely not thunder this time," Sokka observed. He tilted his head back, and then added, "Landslide?"

"Still too regular," Toph said. "And—again?"

They all thought about the odds of that for a second; and then Katara said, "If it _is_ soldiers, we need to know. We might have to get past them in the morning."

"I liked it better when the answer was, 'whatever, let's go back to sleep'," Sokka said, but he was already levering himself up off the ground.

  


*

  


Following the rumble in the ground took them back toward the coast—which was fine, Toph figured, because they'd been about to leave the island anyway.

It got more distinct as they got closer, not just a rumble but a rumble with a beat. Drums, Toph was pretty sure. Drums, and footfalls, and a frothy rush of—of voices, shouting, spilling up over the low steady pounding like a wave.

The coastline dropped down and evened out, rocks giving way to sand, but that didn't throw Toph off the way it might have once. She'd had practice with sand, in the desert. So she dug her toes in and felt for it, and realized after a second why it felt a little strange.

"It's a cave! It's people in a cave, that's why it's all piled up like that—"

"They're dancing," Katara said.

There was something funny going on with her heartbeat when she said it—impossible to miss, when Toph was paying attention. And also impossible to miss was—

"You there! Don't move!"

"And they've got lookouts," Toph observed, wiggling her toes. "Smart."

  


***

  


"I'm sorry, I really am, I should have been paying attention—"

"It's okay," Katara hissed, as quietly as she could. "It's okay, Aang, that's the point of lookouts. It'll be fine." Which she profoundly hoped was not a lie.

Judging by Aang's expression, she hadn't managed to convince him it wasn't; but he went quiet and drifted up toward the cave roof anyway with a solemn little nod.

"We're not interested in getting anyone in trouble," Sokka was saying.

He'd lifted his hands defensively, sword and fan conspicuously still at his waist, and he was using his friendliest tone; but Katara looked around the circle of villagers and saw no easing of tension.

"Seriously," Sokka added. "We're on our way _off_ this island, okay. I can guarantee you that we weren't planning to wander around in the forest to find a battalion to report you to—"

There was a shift in the sea of unfriendly faces, and it was—it was the woman from the tailor-shop, Katara realized, stepping forward to speak. Not humming anymore, her broad cheerful face drawn down into serious lines. "You said as much to me before," she agreed slowly. "But you must see it's a lot to ask, for us to take your word as mainlanders."

"They aren't mainlanders!" someone else said, and there was a murmur and a bustle and then Naram popped out from behind somebody's elbow and said it again: "They aren't mainlanders. Or, well, he is," and Naram pointed out Zuko, mouth briefly pinched. "But they're colonials, and—and he's their friend."

"If they give us away—"

"Anybody could give us away," Naram said, "that's why we have the rule. Make them follow the rule." And boy, did that sound ominous; but then he swung around to face Katara and explained, "The rule is that everyone dances."

"In the hope that it might pose a problem," the tailor-woman said dryly, "to report another for dancing when they could as easily report you for dancing yourself." She looked at Sokka, and then at Katara—and then, very long and very carefully, at Zuko. "Of course we could claim you'd danced here even if you hadn't. But—"

"—it would make a nice gesture, sure," Sokka said, nodding. "We can do gestures. We do great gestures."

"No problem," Toph agreed. "Colonial dances okay?"

"I suppose," the tailor-woman said.

"Awesome," Toph said, and then shook her head. "Man, who would ever have thought those stupid formal dance lessons were going to come in handy?"

The tailor-woman had already turned away to speak to someone else, and around them the air had changed: no one trusted them yet, but no one was glaring daggers at them anymore either. After a moment, the drumming started up again, further back in the cave than Katara could see through the crowd of people.

Sokka and Suki leaned in together for a moment to confer, hands comfortable on each other's shoulders, and then started doing something that looked like one of the fan exercises they'd practiced—but without the fans it was as good as a dance. Toph was mincing her way half-heartedly through something graceful and slow that didn't look like her at all. At least until she noticed Zuko hadn't moved, at which point she sighed and said, "The point is that we _all_ dance, you dolt," and then bent the ground sideways under him so he had to move his feet or else fall over. And—

And Aang was dancing, too.

Up above the rest of them, glowing feet touching nothing but air, eyes closed and arms held out and a shining blue smile on his face.

It wasn't a dance Katara knew, except that wasn't true. For a moment she thought it was that Fire Avatar again, Kunnarya, rising up in her; but she kept watching Aang and found herself remembering how it went, how she'd seen a dance like that and learned it—

How Yangchen had, Katara thought, and closed her eyes before they could start glowing in front of everyone. She didn't need to have them open anymore anyway: Yangchen knew this dance like breathing, could dance it with Katara's feet and never stumble. And Katara had thought of Yangchen, since the spirit world, as—as an endless, ageless calm, but that wasn't right. Yangchen had been a girl once.

Yangchen had been a girl in a circle of initiates, being taught this dance by older nuns more graceful and wiser than Yangchen felt she would ever be. They'd gotten themselves in trouble, teasing each other for getting dizzy with spinning; and then they'd reformed the circle correctly, laughing, brilliant in shades of yellow and orange, turning together like leaves in the wind—

But there was no dancing in the Western Air Temple anymore. There wasn't—there couldn't be. And there might never be again.

Katara opened her eyes and couldn't see through the tears; it was all caught up together, Yangchen's memory and everything it meant, and Katara's own anger—and underneath that, the dark cold fear that lived in her heart, that Mother was even at this moment choking on some southern raider's blade in her throat; Father burning and the ship with him, caught out by some coastal patrol. Dying, while Katara danced in Fire Nation clothes.

And for one fierce terrible moment, she hated every single Fire Nation villager in that cave so much she wanted to set them all on fire. Yangchen was gone—it was just Katara, and she could do it, she _could_ —her vision was half blue light already, and like this she knew so much more than herself, she'd already spent a thousand years learning how to burn things down—

"Katara," Aang said, and touched her hands. How could he touch her hands?

"They killed them," Katara whispered, because nothing any louder felt like it would fit through her throat. "They _killed_ all of them, how can you just—how can I—"

"It wasn't them," Aang said. "Katara—they weren't even born yet. It wasn't them." And then, carefully, with a brief tight squeeze to her fingers, "They just want to dance."

Katara blinked once and then again, again, until Aang's face was his face again instead of just some glowy blob; and at the same time the pressure to her hands faded away, even though when she looked down Aang's fingers were still right there. They were just—going through the back of her hand now.

"That's gross," she said to him unsteadily.

"Being dead is weird," he agreed, low, his expression serious. And then he drifted back a little and lifted his hands, the way you held them to dance old Air Temple dances. "Come on. They aren't here, but you are. Come on."

Katara looked at him. It felt like a stupid, useless thing to do, and for a moment she wanted to tell him so—but it wasn't any more useless than killing people who hadn't even done anything, was it? No matter what Katara did or didn't do to anyone in this cave, the Air Nomads were gone. Gone forever, except—

Except that the Avatar remembered them. The Avatar had _been_ them, the Avatar knew them; and as long as there was still an Avatar, they'd still be there, just a little bit. There would still be someone who knew how to dance the way they had.

So she closed her eyes again and lifted her hands—and she was the one moving her feet this time, not Yangchen, but somehow she was doing it right, even without looking. She lifted her hands, and she listened to the drums, and she turned, like a leaf falling.

  


* * *

  


Yin had lied.

She hadn't meant to, hadn't known she was doing it; but she had.

Kishen _should_ have been right: if he could offer no apologies, and she could offer him no opportunity for restitution—because what was there that could make up for such a thing? Sometimes she wasn't even sure what needed making up for; he _had_ helped her, had helped and was still helping, and no matter where his loyalties lay, he had still risked a great deal by it. Did that matter more or less than the lying? Was it foolish to say it mattered more, or selfish to say it mattered less?

She almost wished she could go back to the earliest moments, that very first shock and anger. That had been so much clearer.

Kishen should have been right. There should not have been anything left to discuss. And yet—

And yet Yin could not shake the feeling that there was an answer she did not have and needed, an answer she might be able to get from him if she could only work out what question to ask. This very day, they would leave the fleet—soon they would be trapped on sampans in the river, with a handful of other sailors around them every moment and no other deck to go to or door to close.

So if there was a discussion to be had, then it should be had promptly. And that, in the end, was what decided her.

A somewhat unusual task to undertake first thing in the morning. But it was easy enough to find him, and easier still to get him to the bridge—these days he followed her every order as quickly and as quietly as possible. She thought perhaps he tensed a little when she closed the hatch behind them, and wondered distantly what he thought he needed to brace himself for.

"I'd rather not keep dragging this back up, Lieutenant," she said after a moment, "and I'm sure you feel the same way."

He didn't ask her to clarify. "Yes, sir," he said.

"And I don't believe it will be necessary to, if you can—clarify a few things for me."

"Of course, sir."

For a moment she wasn't sure where to begin. And then she thought: why not the beginning? She crossed the bridge and sat in the captain's chair, and, after a moment, nodded to the other; and Kishen must have seen the nod but didn't move.

"All right," she said, leaning forward. "All right. Let me tell you what I think, Lieutenant. I think it must have felt like a gift," and she said it as calmly, as evenly as she could. "That day I called you into the holding cells. You must have wondered why—there must have been some part of you that was afraid someone had noticed, that we were bringing you all in because we knew there was a traitor in the ranks, and then—" She shook her head and laughed, and let a smile linger on her mouth; it _was_ very nearly funny, when you thought about it. Very nearly. "And then I gave you a gift. I remember being surprised at you—that you wanted a spot in one of my units, of all things, instead of the money. But now—now I understand. You finally had leverage. You finally had a commanding officer you could force to keep your secret. I imagine you must have been _delighted_ —"

"I was, sir," Kishen said, very low.

He was still standing, steadfastly ignoring the chair that stood across from her; and the look on his face was set, composed, unhappy.

"I was—I _was_ delighted," he repeated, and then he swallowed and looked away. "I don't expect to be forgiven, sir. I only—as long as you're willing to speak to me, sir, and to let me speak to you, I wanted to say: I _was_ delighted.

"When I was a child, I never—I didn't think of myself as Fire Nation. People from the Fire Nation were thieves, beasts, murderers; everyone said so, and I wasn't any of those things. But I knew what I looked like, and I learned what that meant, and then—" He stopped and swallowed again, shaking his head. "Once I thought of going to the queen of Jansung, of working for her, I couldn't let it go. It was—it was how I was going to make up for it, I think, how I was going to make the world forgive me for being what I am. And Zhao was everything I'd ever learned to expect, all the worst of it, and then you—"

"Betrayed him and then tried to buy your silence?" Yin said, conversational.

That hadn't been what he was about to say and she knew it, and he knew that she knew it: he looked at her flatly and then away again, and huffed a breath out through his nose. "I hadn't even realized it," he said, "until just then—when you said _the Avatar_ like that, and then _the girl_ , and suddenly I knew exactly what you meant. I knew you had saved her, you had gotten her out, and I'd helped you without even knowing it. I thought at first that maybe you were like me. But you weren't, and I couldn't understand it. I didn't think it was even possible—to love the Fire Nation and have that love make you _better_ , make you—"

He stopped again, clenching his jaw and looking at the floor, and he was silent long enough that Yin shifted her weight, once, twice, and then said, flat, "Make you what, Lieutenant?"

"Make you worth respecting, sir," he said quietly.

All the things she'd considered, all the possibilities she'd turned over in her mind—and that had never been one of them. She hadn't expected it at all; and it was possible he could tell, considering the way she found herself gaping at him.

She closed her mouth with an effort and tried to figure out what to say, how to—what? Tell him he was wrong? She'd done what she'd done in the South Yellow Sea for exactly that reason, after all: because she couldn't have respected herself if she hadn't. But to hear him say it so baldly—

"I doubt any of my former superiors would agree with your assessment, Lieutenant," she managed at last.

"Their loss, sir," he said, almost gently, and then saluted. "Anything else, sir?"

"No, Lieutenant," she said, and cleared her throat, belatedly standing. "No, that will be all for now."

"As you say, sir," he said, and she could have sworn, in the instant before he turned for the hatch, that he was smiling just a little.

  


* * *

  


The bases fell, in the end, more easily than Mizan had been expecting.

They were undermanned—and Mizan might never have known it but for the Water Tribe warriors, who had been watching the bay since before the fleet headed for Ba Sing Se had even begun to assemble. The loudest of them, Akkama, was the one who'd mentioned it: soldiers, sailors, had boarded the ships in significant numbers, and hadn't gotten back off them again before the fleet had left going up the river.

They'd been pressed into the fleet's service, of course. Mizan should have considered the possibility earlier—but it wouldn't have paid to be optimistic at Tan Khai without any actual evidence to back it up.

But the Water Tribe warriors had seen it happen. And they were also the best way to get in. A patrol with a Water Tribe prisoner to secure in the fort could gain entry, and had been able to open the gate for the rest of the assault from the inside. Tan Khai had scoffed at the plan's simplicity; but then she was paranoid and stubborn, Mizan thought without heat, and would never have let a fort under her command be taken so easily.

Luckily for them, she was not in command of this one, nor the two that were hopefully even now falling to the same trick. That honor lay with the man who was currently sprinting up the stairs away from Mizan as fast as he could.

Fire Nation military bases were all laid out approximately the same way, no matter where across the front they had been constructed—it eased the process of transferring or reassigning troops, that no one had to learn their way around all over again each time. So the tower this officer was forcing Mizan to scale was most likely the one where the messenger hawks were kept, as it would be in any other fort, and—did it really matter whether she caught him?

She slowed a little, as the stairs went on. If he meant to warn the other forts, it was too late for that and she did not need to worry. But there was a chance he'd hidden something else up here, or intended to dramatically throw himself off the roof rather than surrender—and that would only make any other prisoners they did take less tractable. Damn.

She sighed and forced herself to pick up the pace again.

But when she reached the top, it turned out it had been about the hawks after all. The commander had one in his hands, a scroll already fastened in place; when he heard her shove the door open, he looked over his shoulder, and shot her an appropriately defiant glance before he tossed the hawk up toward one of the openings in the wall.

The hawk didn't seem to appreciate the drama of this gesture: it squawked crossly and wheeled around at the top of the tower, and only then flew out.

"They'll know you're here," the officer said, tilting his chin up—he hadn't quite gone for his sword but was clearly thinking about it. "Whatever it is you're planning, you won't get away with it—"

"Strictly speaking," Mizan said, "we're planning on that fleet returning back down the river and attacking us. But perhaps some bureaucrat back home will give you a promotion for that anyway."

It was almost charming, she thought, how he refused to let her derail him. "Are you going to kill me, then?" he said, one hand finally landing decisively on the hilt at his waist.

"No," Mizan said, and then clarified: "Not unless you do something extremely stupid."

It was easy to take pity on the fellow—he was young, young and round-faced, and had probably been made commander only because everyone older and wiser had been pressed by the fleet. He had also clearly consumed a great deal of propaganda he'd found very convincing. And the fort had already been taken; there was no purpose in killing him, only to have to carry his dead body back down all those stairs.

"But you—you're pirates, aren't you?" the officer said uncertainly. "We've had reports from the west, everyone said it was only a matter of time, and the western pirates don't leave survivors—"

"And perhaps you would be right to be concerned," Mizan said, "if we were. But that is not precisely the case."

She smiled at the officer, genial, and leaned over to clap him on the shoulder—and then used that hand to steer him around, so they could look out together: through the opening the hawk had left by, across the fort's courtyard and wall, across the island harbor, to where the first of Sai Sok Sun's vast nine-masted junks was just easing into view from the bay.

  


* * *

  


Sokka flung himself past Suki one more time and then swung his arm around; and there wasn't a fan in his hand, but they'd done this particular exercise enough times that that didn't throw him off.

For a second after they were done, they just held still—and then he couldn't help looking up. Suki was looking back at him, grinning, and he broke the pose at last to throw himself at her, laughing.

They hugged for a minute, and then remembered they were in a cave full of really enthusiastic people dancing, and got out of the way. From off to one side of the cave, Sokka took a quick look around: there was Toph, who'd quit whatever classical Earth Kingdom thing she'd started with in favor of stomping in gleeful rhythm with the drums; and there was Zuko, ugh, who'd pressed himself up silently against a wall and seemed to be hoping no one would notice; and—

And there was Katara. A space had opened up around her, but it didn't seem to be because she'd asked for it. She had her eyes closed and was turning steadily with the drums, feet quick and light and precise. Nothing Gran-Gran had ever taught them to dance, Sokka was sure. She was holding one hand out and had the other raised like it was touching someone else's, even though there was nobody there.

Except maybe there was, Sokka thought. You could never really tell with Dead Buddy Aang, could you?

And a little further off behind her, watching her with wide eyes, was Naram.

"Hey, I'll be back in a sec," Sokka told Suki, squeezing her hand and smiling; and then he eeled off to try to work his way over there without anybody elbowing him in the head.

  


*

  


He was mostly successful, in the end—nobody got him in the head, anyway, though he was totally going to have a bruise on his shin right there.

And, even better, Naram hadn't moved away. "Hey," Sokka said, and Naram turned to look at him and then back at Katara, as if he couldn't help it.

Which was sort of perfect.

"So I get the feeling that _you_ get that there's something weird about her," Sokka said.

"I thought I saw it before," Naram said, low enough that Sokka almost didn't catch it. "In the square, when you were—her eyes changed. There was a light."

"Yep, that's the kind of weird I meant," Sokka agreed.

"She had bracelets," Naram went on, "like we wear to dance here; except she didn't. But she did, just for a second. And then a minute ago, there was—there was someone else standing here instead of her. Different hair, different clothes, older. She looked at me," and Naram sounded bewildered, confused, but not the kind of confused that was about to turn into shouting _burn the Avatar!_ Not in a bad way, just awed.

And that was sort of perfect, too.

"Yeah, she's—she's important," Sokka hedged. "And we aren't just visiting our friend from the mainland. We're here for a reason."

Which got Naram to look at him instead of Katara.

"We need to find some dragons. If there are any."

It wasn't a perfect solution. Maybe the ancient Firebenders had learned it from dragons, but who knew whether you still could? But Katara had to figure it out _somehow_. And if there weren't any dragons to find, then maybe he could talk her around to trying a person. Eventually.

He got why she didn't want to—boy, did he ever. He couldn't help glancing down, quick, at his arm: it was a little less obvious, but the scars still showed, weird and pale and shiny all up and down where he'd been burned. He hadn't told her, hadn't told anybody; but starting the fire for dinner still freaked him out a little sometimes, when the tinder caught all at once and flared up.

But the Avatar had to learn to Firebend, and Katara was the Avatar. And also his sister, which meant if she was being stupid, it was his job to help her get over it.

"I don't know about dragons," Naram said slowly, "but there are stories—people who know things, on other islands. Do you have a map?"

"Oh, do I ever," Sokka said, and fished it out of his sash, grinning.

  



End file.
